Stigma of Ukraine's forgotten soldiers who 'died the wrong way'

 

Kateryna cannot talk about her son, Orest, without tears. Her voice trembles with anger as she explains how she found out the news that he had died on the front line in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine in 2023.

According to the official investigation by the army, he died by a "self-inflicted wound", something Katernya finds hard to believe.

Kateryna has asked for her and her late son to remain anonymous due to the stigma that surrounds suicide and mental health in Ukraine.

Orest was a quiet 25-year-old who loved books and dreamed of an academic career. His poor eyesight had made him initially unfit for service at the start of the war, his mother says.

But in 2023, a recruitment patrol stopped him in the street. His eyesight was re-evaluated and he was deemed fit to fight. Not long after, he was sent to the front as a communications specialist. 

 

 

While Ukraine collectively mourns the loss of more than 45,000 soldiers who have died since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, a quieter tragedy unfolds in the shadows.

There are no official statistics surrounding suicide among soldiers. Officials describe them as isolated incidents. Yet human rights advocates and bereaved families believe they may be in the hundreds.

"Orest was caught, not summoned," Kateryna says bitterly.

The local recruitment centre denied wrongdoing to the BBC, saying impaired vision made Orest "partially fit" during wartime.

Once deployed near Chasiv Yar in Donetsk, Orest became increasingly withdrawn and depressed, Kateryna recalls.  

 

 

She still writes letters to her son every day - 650 and counting - her grief made worse by how Ukraine classifies suicide as a non-combat loss. Families of those who take their own lives receive no compensation, no military honours and no public recognition.

"In Ukraine, it's as if we've been divided," says Kateryna. "Some died the right way, and others died the wrong way."

"The state took my son, sent him to war, and brought me back a body in a bag. That's it. No help, no truth, nothing." 

 

 

For Mariyana from Kyiv, the story is heartbreakingly similar. She too wishes to keep her identity and her late husband's hidden.

Her husband Anatoliy volunteered to fight in 2022. He was initially refused because of his lack of military experience but he "kept coming back until they took him", she says with a faint smile.

Anatoliy was deployed as a machine-gunner near Bakhmut, one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

"He said that, after one mission, about 50 guys were killed," Maryana recalls. "He came back different; quiet; distant."

After losing part of his arm, Anatoliy was sent to hospital. One evening, after a phone call with his wife, he took his own life in the hospital yard. 

 

 

"The war broke him," she says through tears. "He couldn't live with what he'd seen."

Because Anatoliy died by suicide, officials denied him a military burial.

"When he stood on the front line, he was useful. But now he's not a hero?"

Mariyana feels betrayed: "The state threw me to the roadside. I gave them my husband, and they left me alone with nothing."

She has also felt stigma from other widows. 

 

LONG READ  

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwypp1jwjz1o