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As The Drone War Intensifies, Ukrainians Fight To Care For Their Own

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In 2024, while visiting Ukraine’s 98th Territorial Defense Battalion at the front, one soldier caught my eye. He walked with a limp, dragging his body under the weight of his rifle. He told me a Russian drone had struck him as he raised his hands to shield his face; the blast tore through his arms, taking most of his fingers.

Yet despite what would end most soldiers’ careers, he pleaded with his commanders to stay on the front lines. His determination reflects a broader truth – the war has turned Ukraine into a nation of innovators who refuse to give up.

Once written off by the West, Ukraine fought back through the ingenuity of its people, scaling up homegrown drone technology that now dominates the battlefield. I’ve witnessed this firsthand while embedded with frontline units. Much like its wartime reinvention of modern defense, Ukraine is now racing to reform its medical system, driven by volunteers, medical professionals, and soldiers themselves.

For many, the wounds are deep and lasting. “Health care for soldiers and veterans is still very inadequate. There is not enough PTSD or therapy counseling for both Ukrainian and foreign soldiers,” says Rima Ziuraitis, a medic in Ukraine’s International Legion. “If resources are available, not enough is being done to inform soldiers and veterans of this availability.”

Much of the effort to change that can be seen in Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, which has become a hub for veteran rehabilitation and innovation. “The model we are building here is particularly interesting because of the broader state of higher education in Ukraine today,” says Rector Viktor Yevdokymov. “Given demographic risks and the impact of the war – with so many young people having left – we need to recognize a hard truth: no national budget can sustain financing such a large number of institutions.”

Even universities have had to pivot to fill in gaps in supporting Ukrainian veterans. Despite enormous challenges, Yevdokymov’s university has adapted to wartime realities. “Universities in Ukraine have been dramatically affected, yet they have also shown a tremendous level of adaptability,” says Oleksandr Pankieiev, associate professor at the University of Alberta.

That adaptability extends beyond classrooms. Zhytomyr Polytechnic has launched new programs focused on veteran rehabilitation and policy development. “We were proud to introduce a project aimed at supporting Ukrainian veterans – already positively reviewed by our American partners,” Yevdokymov wrote on social media, recalling his presentation of the initiative in Texas in June.

Breaking The Stigma

The scale of psychological trauma is beginning to surface. “In the United States they take PTSD very seriously,” says Andrii Brodskyi, a war veteran and head of the Center for Veteran Development at the university. “In Ukraine, however, PTSD is often dismissed. I know this personally – I was diagnosed with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury. To this day, I still have to fight the healthcare system to acknowledge it.”

He added: “Many veterans say, ‘PTSD is for the weak. I don’t have it.’ But later they realize they do need psychological help. I believe every soldier leaving service should undergo mandatory psychological diagnostics.”

Foreign volunteers who fought for Ukraine face many of the same struggles. Among them was Captain Ned Harris, a former British Coldstream Guards officer who joined the International Legion in 2022. After losing a leg while rescuing trapped soldiers near Bakhmut, he returned to the front just three months later, determined to lead his men and help others cope with trauma. But like many veterans, he carried invisible wounds. According to The Telegraph, in the summer of 2025, Harris died by suicide.

Psychotherapist Nataliia Kharitonova, who leads Zhytomyr’s PsyLab, shared a story that shows the growing needs of veterans returning from the front. “I know one young soldier, captured near Kyiv in early 2022. When he was freed two and a half years later, he could hardly speak. After two rehabilitation courses, he began to smile and communicate again, but he still needs a third.”

She noted that rehabilitation is a long process, as healing takes a long time. “It’s not like taking a pill for a fever. It takes years.” As Ukraine’s psychological wounds surface, attention is shifting toward rebuilding a more comprehensive system of care, one that supports both mind and body while moving away from the Soviet-era neglect of mental health toward Western standards of treatment.

Building A New Model Of Care

International collaboration is key to that progress. Judith DeBose, a U.S. army veteran and delegate with the United States Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights, says Ukraine’s recovery depends on its veterans. “If we do not rebuild Ukraine through her veteran population that will include families, she will surely have difficulty recovering from the war. We will have to have a workforce incorporating existing veterans’ families. Physical wounds can be treated and recovered from with prosthetics and physical therapy. Mental wounds take more.”

Experts caution that Ukraine’s focus on prosthetics can sometimes overshadow less visible injuries. “The biggest struggle is PTSD and too much attention to only one type of trauma-related disability – limb amputation,” says Kumka. “Other ‘invisible’ or less marketable trauma types remain under-rehabilitated and under-cared.”

With partners like DeBose and Douglas Davis, an assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Zhytomyr Polytechnic is launching Ukraine’s first full-cycle rehabilitation program, covering rehabilitation, recreation, recovery, and reintegration for veterans and their families. “Since the start of the war, Ukraine has likely become the world’s leading innovator and capacity builder in rehabilitation,” Davis notes. “Before 2022, most Ukrainian hospitals had limited rehabilitation capacity, particularly for amputees or prosthetics programs. That’s changed dramatically.”

He pointed to new facilities such as Superhumans, Unbroken, and the Western Rehabilitation Center, which modeled their programs on the country’s Paralympic training facilities. “As the war has continued and the number of amputees and disabled veterans has grown, the rehabilitation sector has expanded rapidly throughout Ukraine,” says Davis. “Addressing a challenge of this scale requires enormous national capacity, and Ukraine has made remarkable progress.”

Davis, also a frequent medical volunteer in Ukraine, warns that most Western doctors are unprepared for the realities of the country’s frontline medicine. “The scale and nature of trauma we see, especially in cases involving suspected chemical agents used by Russian forces, is beyond anything most hospitals in the West are equipped to manage,” he added.

Drone warfare has turned distance into deadly precision, changing the kinds of injuries doctors are forced to treat on the battlefield. “The war in Ukraine is the first conflict in which we’ve seen drones used on a massive scale for direct attacks,” says Michael Samotowka, a surgeon who has volunteered in Ukraine. “Instead of seeing your enemy in close range and shooting at them, the lines of battle are now several kilometers apart, separated by a field of drones, which inflict potentially devastating injuries. Drones can explode above a soldier raining down fragments at high speed and energy, resulting in multiple body parts being injured.” The injuries Samotowka describes are echoed by Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.

Voices From The Front

For soldiers fighting on the front, the need for medical innovation is immediate. “There are now far more drones than even in the spring,” says Senior Lieutenant Ihor Ivanov of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade. “In my opinion, the majority of injuries at the moment come from drones. Stabilization points really do their best, but hospitals farther from the front are barely functioning. Prosthetics are definitely at a much higher level now than in 2022, but every bit of help has to be fought for.”

He pauses, then offers an example that captures how deadly the front has become. “On October 2, 2025, near Vyiakivlivka in Donetsk Oblast, we lost six men and four were wounded,” he says. “It happened because a junior lieutenant led new recruits into a dugout at the wrong time, without proper camouflage or even basic movement discipline. A Russian FPV drone hit the spot a minute later. While the wounded were being evacuated, two more soldiers were injured by mortar fire.”

Hryhorii Hoidalo from the 105th Territorial Defense Brigade describes a similar reality. “The most common injuries come from FPV drones and from munitions dropped by drones. Drones also frequently mine approach routes with anti-personnel mines such as the Pelyustka and POM types,” he tells me. He adds that every soldier now carries a personal first aid kit, a small but vital change in frontline preparedness.

Kyrylo Matros, senior combat medic of the 1st Separate Assault Regiment, agrees that progress and stigma coexist. “The provision of prosthetics is now at a high level. Soldiers can receive them through state programs or numerous non-profit organizations,” he says. “There has been some progress regarding PTSD and adjustment disorders, but most people don’t want to admit they have a problem. Speaking from personal experience, I had serious problems. With the help of a specialist, I found a way out. Psychotherapy isn’t a cure-all, but as a way to regain balance after the hell of war, it’s a pretty good start.”

He’s one of many wounded soldiers who found purpose in returning to service. “There are quite a lot of people like me,” Matros tells me. “First, we have a sense of unfinished business. Second, the army needs experienced people who can either continue fighting the enemy, pass on their experience as instructors, or take on new roles in the military that match their current abilities. For example, I used to be a machine gunner. After being wounded, I served in various positions. Now I’m the senior combat medic of an artillery battery.”

Drone pilots echo the same view. “About 90% of injuries now come from drones,” Danylo Makarov from the 108th Brigade tells me. “When it comes to medical supplies like first aid kits and tourniquets, we’re generally well equipped, but evacuation is a different story. It’s not always possible to get you out quickly, or at all, from certain places.” After spending six months in a hospital recovering from his wounds, Ruslan Dobrytskyi, a platoon commander in the unmanned systems battalion of the 23rd Separate Mechanized Brigade, told me, “Most injuries now come from drones.”

Antonina Kumka, Chief Director of Protez Hub, a rehabilitation network that has coordinated prosthetic care since 2014, told me that only 1.9 percent of all wounds are from bullets, most come from shrapnel and explosions. “Seventeen percent of all amputations are due to tourniquet syndrome, which is very high compared to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan,” she explains. “It’s the result of delayed evacuation and lack of conversion training.”

As drones dominate the kill zone, even minor delays can cost limbs, or lives. “Drones, when they explode in a soldier’s hands, often cause the loss of sight and limbs,” Kumka adds. “It’s 100 percent better to use ground robots and keep people from being shelled.” However, not all veterans are convinced that everyone receives equal access to the care they need.

The Gaps In Care

Even as Ukraine builds new rehabilitation centers and scales up prosthetics programs, inequities remain. Mykola Melnyk, a former officer with the 47th Mechanized Brigade who lost a leg and suffered severe damage to the other, tells me that government aid often falls short of real-world needs.

“When it comes to prosthetics, the state guarantees coverage up to two million hryvnias,” he says. “But there’s a problem: if you have a double amputation, or like me, one leg amputated and the other badly damaged, you need more expensive and higher-quality prosthetics that the state cannot cover.”

Melnyk describes a maze of paperwork, unreliable charities, and personal expenses. “Another issue is dishonest charities that claim to help veterans,” he says. “I personally experienced this, I was fitted for prosthetics through Revived Soldiers Ukraine in Florida, at the expense of the ‘Morshynska’ trademark. After the first fitting, they suddenly refused further cooperation, and I had to find a way to replace my prosthetics on my own. In the end, I spent $27,000 of my own money, co-financed with another foundation, Super Humans, to buy a Genium-4 knee that suits my injuries. So yes, state funding exists, but it’s not enough.”

He adds that clinics face chronic delays in reimbursement. “Often, clinics that produce prosthetics have to wait months for government payments, causing delays and forcing them to stop taking new veterans,” he says. “In my view, the prosthetics program is superficial as it doesn’t account for the nature of injuries or a soldier’s service record. Funding depends only on the severity of the wound, not the contribution of the person on the battlefield.”

Melnyk’s service record reflects the imbalance. “I’ve fought since 2017, I hold the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and I was among the first to breach enemy defenses near Robotyne,” he tells me. “Yet I’m treated the same as someone who accidentally injured himself and lost a limb. The system doesn’t account for service history, only injury severity. I think that’s wrong. Still, the state probably has its reasons, and perhaps I’m mistaken.”

Yet, not everyone agrees that prosthetics are the weakest link in Ukraine’s veteran care.

“Despite a false belief that there is a need to fundraise for prosthetics, there isn’t such a need,” says Kumka. “The prosthetics provision program works well in Ukraine, one of the most successful government programs. A serviceman can get up to $100,000 per limb, and the application process isn’t complex.”

According to Kumka, over 90 percent of military amputees receive their prosthetics through the state program, which fits them locally in Ukraine. “Numbers like 50,000 or 100,000 amputees are inflated. The actual number is closer to 20,000 military and civilian amputees since 2022,” she adds.

Still, the system faces abuse: “Prosthetic centers hire unqualified staff, and some foreign partners come with low-quality products they test in Ukraine,” Kumka notes.

A System Under Strain

Opinions are mixed when it comes to the question of health care for veterans. “I can’t fully judge the veteran health care system because I’m a first-group invalid and don’t often interact with it – it doesn’t bother me, and I don’t bother it,” Melnyk said. “But less than a year ago, when I went through a medical commission, it took me 25 days instead of the promised five. Later, getting into the medical-social expert commission was difficult, though once admitted, it was relatively easy to pass.”

He adds that bureaucracy, not bad intent, remains the main obstacle. “Overall, the health care system for veterans suffers from the same problems as Ukraine’s health care in general: it’s overloaded. There are no special conditions or separate rules for veterans. We’re just part of the same overstretched system, facing the same issues, without any preferential treatment.”

Support From Abroad

Melnyk’s frustrations highlight how much of Ukraine’s recovery still depends on outside help. To fill those gaps, the Ukrainian diaspora has played an important role in supporting wounded soldiers and modernizing care. The Volia Fund, founded by Ukrainian tech professionals in the United States, has raised more than $1.7 million since 2022 to supply drones, evacuation vehicles, and advanced medical and rehabilitation equipment to Ukraine.

“We wanted to create a platform for partnership – open for collaboration with other organizations and open to volunteers from all backgrounds,” Tetiana Novokhatska, one of Volia’s co-founders, tells me. Through its Ukraine Abilitation Initiative (UAble), the fund now helps veterans access prosthetics and therapy, partnering with U.S. specialists to train Ukrainian doctors and therapists. “Education and skill-building for local specialists are crucial in ensuring long-term rehabilitation success,” Yuliia Matvieieva, Volia’s Vice President of Medical and Veteran Affairs, adds.

Matvieieva added, “While we focus on bringing advanced knowledge, expertise, and rehabilitation equipment to Ukraine, I believe the most valuable thing we bring – both to patients and health care providers – is hope. Because there is no future without hope.”

For some, healing Ukraine’s defenders goes beyond medicine. American artist and trauma-informed recovery coach Sasha Samuels turned her craft into therapy. In 2023, she traveled to Ukraine without contacts or guarantees, painting 16 watercolor portraits of wounded soldiers recovering at Superhumans and Unbroken rehabilitation centers and gifting each their portrait. She most recently returned last month, and has now completed 29 portraits in total.

Veterans smiled, embraced her, and proudly showed the artworks to family and staff, moments that reflected their strength and progress in healing. “One patient pointed to me and said, ‘She’s healing me,’” Samuels recalled.

These veterans are laying the foundations of a new Ukraine – one that has, over the past three and a half years, produced more heroes and forged more national mythology for future generations than in the previous 50, 100, or even 150 years, according to Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy, speaking at the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum on Sept.13, 2025.

The ingenuity that once kept Ukraine alive on the battlefield is now guiding its recovery. A new resilience is taking shape, one built to outlast the war and rebuild what comes after, with its veterans at the forefront.

Comments attributed to soldiers, medics, and experts were drawn from interviews conducted by the author during reporting for this story.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkirichenko/2025/10/08/as-the-drone-war-intensifies-ukrainians-fight-to-care-for-their-own/