Ukraine Veterans Rehabilitation and Reintegration

closed

The Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) aims to support a program to rehabilitate and reintegrate Ukraine’s veterans so they may contribute to Ukraine’s national recovery and realize their full potential with the assistance of the public and private sectors. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, more than one million men and women have taken up arms as part of Ukraine’s military and territorial defense forces (TDF). This military service affects millions more family members. Foreign assistance programming dedicated to assisting Ukraine’s veterans identified the following key elements for veteran rehabilitation and reintegration: (1) The capacity of Ukraine to provide services and benefits to veterans; (2) provision of physical, psycho-social, and mental health support to veterans and their families; and (3) provision of legal and vocational assistance. Furthermore, the Government of Ukraine has identified the reintegration of veterans as both a need and as a driver of Ukraine’s recovery as veterans with key professional skillsets return to the workforce. This initiative will guide Government of Ukraine and civil society efforts to bring current veteran support structures to the scale needed for national recovery, and provide targeted, evidence-based, direct support to veterans who have left active duty and the practitioners who assist them. In addition, this initiative must include innovative interventions such as (but not restricted to) public-private partnerships to facilitate the re-entry of veterans into key industries. It must also directly address the changing nature of Ukraine’s veteran population, such as the growth in the number of women, as well as sexual and gender minorities, who are, or will become, veterans.

High