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The Man Everyone Thought Was Dead

For three days after a landmine blast near Bakhmut, Sasha lay unconscious. He had been so gravely wounded that he was thought dead. He regained consciousness inside a black body bag in a morgue. Sasha — not his real name — was injured in May 2023. The explosion caused severe facial injuries and traumatic brain injury. By the time he arrived at Vsesylni, a rehabilitation clinic in Odesa, he had endured six operations. One side of his face was partly paralyzed, and he was so self-conscious about his appearance that he was on his way to becoming a recluse.

The damage that could not be seen was equally disabling. He had headaches, tinnitus, insomnia, depression, and an intense sensitivity to light, all common after traumatic brain injury. "He is a very strong man," said Olga Peskova, founder of Vsesylni. But strength had not taught his injured brain how to become quiet.

A Key to Accepting Mental Health Support

Like many Ukrainian servicemen, Sasha was not eager to accept psychotherapy. Because of the abuse of psychiatry under the Soviets, who used psychiatry as a tool of political repression and confined dissidents in hospitals, psychotherapy in Ukraine........

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