Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of his homeland, Vladyslav Sentiakov envisioned a quiet, stable future. He wanted to build a family and work as a steady provider. To help secure that ambition, the florist from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv made a life-altering choice: he volunteered to join the military.
The day he signed his military contract, he recalled, felt like a breath of fresh air. It felt like the start of a brand-new chapter in his life. He began his service in a patrol battalion and went on to take on several other critical roles as the grueling war progressed, experiencing firsthand the realities of a conflict that would reshape his country and his own inner world.
Yet, active service left Sentiakov grappling with the invisible wounds of combat, specifically clinical-level anxiety. Seeking a path toward healing, he turned to the Heart of Azovstal, a prominent non-governmental organization that provides veterans with comprehensive medical assistance, professional retraining, education, and both physical and mental rehabilitation.
As Sentiakov began working through his trauma with a dedicated psychologist, he also agreed to take part in a pilot study for a new patient tracking system known as "Healthy Mind." The digital platform is currently being tested ahead of a planned nationwide rollout across Ukraine’s evolving healthcare landscape.
At the beginning and end of his therapy sessions, Sentiakov filled out detailed digital surveys designed to track his symptom scores over time. He is one of more than 4,500 patients who have participated in the program, which aims to bolster psychological diagnostics and improve systemic mental health care delivery across the country.
The initiative serves as one of the key partner platforms contributing to the wider rollout of Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska’s nationwide mental health program, titled "How Are You?" That overarching campaign was officially launched in March 2023 as an all-Ukrainian mental health initiative with vital partnership and support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and USAID. The campaign coordinates a wide range of programs across various levels of the Ukrainian government, all working toward a shared goal: making psychological support accessible and destigmatized for everyone in the country.
Zelenska, who worked as a television writer prior to her husband Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s election to the presidency, has leveraged her significant public profile to champion a diverse range of critical social issues. These include accessibility and the creation of barrier-free environments, the introduction of healthy and nutritious school meals, the active promotion of Ukrainian culture abroad, and the expansion of mental health education.
According to the official website of the President of Ukraine, the "How Are You?" campaign aims to promote the formation of a culture of caring for mental health in society. Mental health is viewed as fundamentally essential to the population’s ability to adapt, function, and develop during an ongoing war. Furthermore, Ukrainian citizens’ emotional solidarity and resilience are regarded as equally crucial to the country’s long-term prospects for its eventual post-war recovery.
The scale of the mental health challenge is immense. According to a 2025 survey conducted by the World Health Organization, roughly 70% of Ukrainian adults report experiencing symptoms of mental health distress. However, despite the widespread nature of these struggles, just one in five individuals surveyed said they had actively sought professional help.
For veterans like Sentiakov, the journey forward involves reconciling the trauma of the past with the hopes they held before the conflict began. "Despite everything that’s happened," Sentiakov says, "I’m still working toward those same goals."
Digital Technology Paints a Distinct Picture
The pressures facing Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure are unprecedented. "The war has simultaneously increased the need for psychological help and made it harder to provide," explains psychologist Daryna Romanovska, who leads the psychological department of the Healthy Mind program.
A 2026 study by the World Health Organization found that Ukraine has experienced more than 3,000 verified attacks on health facilities during more than 1,534 days of relentless war. Given four and a half years of continuous conflict, the physical and administrative strains on the healthcare system are palpable every single day. Time with a qualified mental health specialist is increasingly scarce and precious.
That acute shortage has prompted Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to explore innovative ways to minimize the heavy burden of intake questionnaires, administrative paperwork, and routine data collection that typically consume valuable time during initial clinical consults.
By streamlining these initial bureaucratic hurdles, the new digital program empowers healthcare providers to focus their energy on the most critical aspects of therapy: applying clinical judgment, building a strong therapeutic relationship, developing an individualized care plan, and providing the actual therapeutic intervention.
Prior to an initial consultation, clients complete a digital assessment independently, answering a comprehensive series of questions across 55 validated psychodiagnostic scales. This data creates a reliable quantitative baseline for assessment throughout the entire duration of therapy. Future follow-up assessments then track patient progress using objective metrics. Healthy Mind is designed to complement the qualitative information gathered during the clinical interview, including a person’s personal history, life context, and the clinician’s professional judgment.
The program is currently slated for formal recommendation by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. It aligns seamlessly with a broader national buildout of certification and professional development programs designed to bolster the entire healthcare system in addressing mounting psychological needs.
The project team recently completed a pilot study involving 533 veterans through the Heart of Azovstal NGO. Following their initial diagnostics, 256 of those veterans retested after undergoing care, showing measurable improvement over the course of the program.
However, the diagnostic data also highlighted the severe psychological toll of the conflict. Among the participants, 34% of respondents reported symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—a figure that is ten times higher than peacetime norms. Additionally, the study revealed that 47% of participants reported high stress levels, while 23% suffered from clinical-level anxiety.
The war has catalyzed technological innovation as a core facet of Ukraine’s broader national defense and administrative resilience. The government’s ambitious Diia Digital State initiative, which offers unified digital portals for government services, legal documents, and education, was originally launched in 2019. Such rapid technological advances catapulted Ukraine from 122nd in the world up to third place on United Nations rankings evaluating digital services provided by national governments.
Romanovska notes that bolstering Ukraine’s mental health system with individual-level progress tracking fits naturally into the broader direction of the country’s digital transformation. The strategy centers on using modern digital tools to scale access to vital services, standardize clinical processes, collect and analyze data efficiently, and support data-driven decision-making across the sector.
Focus on Individuals’ Direct Experience
In Ukraine, drawing a hard line between the PTSD experienced by civilians and the psychological distress faced by soldiers after leaving the battlefield is often impossible. The shared trauma cuts across societal roles.
"The core of the disorder is the same: reliving the traumatic experience, avoiding reminders of it, a sense of ongoing threat, disrupted sleep, and emotional and cognitive changes," Romanovska explains. The critical characteristics that define the psychological impact are the nature, duration, and repetition of the traumatic experience itself, notes Natalia Shevchenko, a project manager at the Heart of Azovstal NGO.
Across Ukraine, millions of civilians are exposed directly to the horrors of war, often through Russia’s near-constant missile and drone attacks targeting urban centers and civilian residential areas. They endure repeated, prolonged traumatic events: heavy shelling, military occupation, captivity, the sudden loss of loved ones, the destruction of their homes, forced displacement, separation from family members, and a pervasive, lingering uncertainty about tomorrow.
Emerging psychological literature and research coming out of Ukraine paint a complex picture that differs significantly from recent historical conflicts. For comparison, about one in five American service members returning home from deployments in Afghanistan exhibited symptoms of PTSD or major depression, with the strongest predictor of those symptoms being direct exposure to combat.
A more apt global comparison, experts suggest, is the psychological toll experienced by the Israeli population following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent regional war. Those acute shocks led to an estimated 30,000 new PTSD cases among the most heavily traumatized individuals, with some 500,000 Israelis considered at risk for developing the disorder.
However, differences in sampling methods and study criteria make direct statistical comparisons across recent global conflicts inherently difficult. Furthermore, the specific realities of Ukraine’s situation—characterized by a prolonged full-scale conventional war, mass internal displacement, and systematic strikes on civilian infrastructure—do not lend themselves to direct extrapolation with Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel.
"Prolonged, repeated traumatic experience—regardless of a person’s status—significantly raises the risk of PTSD, and healthcare systems in the post-conflict period consistently run short of the resources needed to cover it," Shevchenko notes.
Despite the immense strain on national resources, Ukraine’s emergence as a global leader in digital technology is charting a unique path in how both civilians and combat veterans reckon with the profound psychic toll of war.
For individuals navigating these challenges, the message from those within the system is clear. "I really do believe the healthcare system really can help—the main thing is to reach out for the support you need," veteran Vladyslav Sentiakov says.
Having completed a course of therapy with his psychologist, Sentiakov finds his symptoms are now far more manageable, leaving him feeling empowered to move forward with his life. Looking ahead, his perspective remains steadfast: "My core life goals remain just as important to me as they always were."