Reflecting on the milestone, Sentiakov recalled that the day he formally signed his military contract felt like an unexpected breath of freedom. It marked the start of an entirely new chapter in his personal life. He initially began his service within a patrol battalion and went on to take on several diverse roles as the protracted war evolved and intensified around him.
Yet the grueling reality of frontline service left Sentiakov grappling with severe, clinical-level anxiety. Seeking a path toward recovery, he reached out to the Heart of Azovstal, a prominent non-governmental organization dedicated to providing military veterans with comprehensive medical assistance, career retraining, educational resources, and multi-faceted physical and mental rehabilitation.
As Sentiakov began regular sessions with his assigned psychologist, he also agreed to participate in an exclusive pilot study for a new patient-tracking system known as Healthy Mind. The digital platform is currently undergoing rigorous testing ahead of a planned national rollout across Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure.
At both the beginning and the conclusion of his therapy regimen, Sentiakov completed detailed digital surveys designed to track his symptom scores over time. He stands as one of more than 4,500 patients who have taken part in the ongoing program, which seeks to radically bolster psychological diagnostics and streamline systemic mental health interventions across the country.
The initiative serves as one of the key partner platforms contributing to the broader implementation of Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska’s ambitious nationwide mental health program, titled "How Are You?" That pivotal campaign officially launched in March 2023 as a comprehensive, all-Ukrainian mental health initiative established with strategic partnerships from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The overarching campaign coordinates a vast array of specialized programs across various branches of the Ukrainian government, working collectively to ensure that professional psychological support remains accessible to every citizen throughout the country.
Zelenska, who established a successful career as a television writer prior to the election of her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has actively utilized her significant public profile to champion a diverse range of critical societal issues. Her advocacy work spans national accessibility initiatives—including the creation of barrier-free physical and digital environments—the introduction of healthier, more nutritious school meals, the active promotion of Ukrainian culture abroad, and expanded access to mental health education.
According to official statements published on the official website of the President of Ukraine, the primary objective of the "How Are You?" campaign is to promote the formation of a sustainable culture of caring for mental health within broader society. Maintaining psychological well-being is viewed as fundamentally essential to the population’s core ability to adapt, function, and develop constructively during a devastating war. Furthermore, the emotional solidarity of Ukrainian citizens is considered equally crucial for laying the groundwork for the nation’s eventual post-war recovery and societal rebuilding.
Despite these concerted governmental and organizational efforts, the psychological toll of the conflict remains staggering. Approximately 70% of Ukrainian adults currently report experiencing prominent symptoms of mental health distress, according to comprehensive survey data compiled by the World Health Organization. Concurrently, only one in five individuals surveyed stated that they had actively sought out professional help to address their struggles.
Reflecting on his journey and the road ahead, Sentiakov remains remarkably resilient. Despite everything that has happened and the psychological burdens he has carried, he affirms that he is still actively working toward the very same personal goals he envisioned before the war began.
Digital Technology Paints a Distinct Picture
The operational challenges facing mental health professionals in Ukraine are immense. Daryna Romanovska, a psychologist who leads the psychological department of the Healthy Mind initiative, notes that the war has simultaneously achieved two conflicting outcomes: it has dramatically increased the societal demand for psychological help while rendering the delivery of that care significantly more difficult.
A comprehensive WHO study revealed that Ukraine has experienced more than 3,000 verified attacks on healthcare facilities and medical infrastructure over the course of more than 1,534 days of relentless warfare. Given more than four and a half years of continuous conflict, the systemic strains placed upon the national healthcare apparatus are palpable in every sector. Dedicated time with a qualified medical specialist or licensed therapist has become an increasingly scarce and precious commodity.
This persistent reality has prompted Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to explore innovative ways to minimize the administrative burdens of intake questionnaires and routine data collection that typically consume the entirety of initial clinical consultations. By effectively freeing up clinicians from these initial bureaucratic hurdles, the new digital program empowers healthcare providers to focus their limited time and energy on the most critical aspects of therapeutic care: exercising clinical judgment, building a strong therapeutic relationship, developing a customized care plan, and delivering actual therapy.
Prior to attending a formal consultation, clients complete a comprehensive digital assessment independently, answering targeted questions across 55 validated psychodiagnostic scales. This rich stream of digital data establishes an objective baseline for assessment throughout the entire duration of a patient’s therapy. Future follow-up assessments are then utilized to track clinical progress with precise quantitative measures.
The Healthy Mind platform is designed to complement, rather than replace, traditional information gathered during the clinical interview, including a person’s detailed medical history, unique life context, and the professional clinician’s own independent judgment. The program is currently slated for formal recommendation by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, aligning seamlessly with a broader national buildout of professional certification and specialized training designed to bolster the healthcare system in addressing mounting societal needs.
Recently, the Healthy Mind team successfully concluded a pilot study involving 533 military veterans through their ongoing collaboration with the Heart of Azovstal NGO. Following initial diagnostics, 256 of those participants completed retesting protocols, revealing measurable, quantifiable clinical improvement over the course of their participation in the program.
The data gathered during the pilot painted a clear picture of the psychological landscape facing returning service members. Among the respondents, 34% reported persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder—a figure that registers roughly ten times higher than typical peacetime norms. Additionally, the study recorded 47% of participants reporting high stress levels, while clinical-level anxiety was detected in 23% of users.
The ongoing war has fundamentally catalyzed technological innovation, transforming it into a core pillar of Ukraine’s national defense and societal resilience. The government’s Diia Digital State initiative, which offers secure digital portals for a vast array of government services, legal documents, and educational tools, was originally launched in 2019. Such sweeping technological advances have dramatically catapulted Ukraine from 122nd in the world up to third place on official United Nations rankings measuring the 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 strategic direction of the country’s ongoing digital transformation. The overarching goal centers on utilizing advanced digital tools to successfully scale access to essential services, standardize operational processes, collect and analyze critical data, and intelligently support professional decision-making at all levels of care.
Focus on Individuals’ Direct Experience
Across Ukraine today, drawing a hard line between the post-traumatic stress experienced by civilians and the psychological burdens carried by soldiers after leaving the battlefield is increasingly difficult. Romanovska explains that the core clinical makeup of the disorder remains fundamentally the same regardless of uniform: individuals suffer from intrusive reliving of traumatic experiences, actively avoid reminders of the event, harbor an overwhelming sense of ongoing threat, experience severely disrupted sleep, and undergo profound emotional and cognitive changes.
Natalia Shevchenko, a project manager at the Heart of Azovstal NGO, emphasizes that the critical defining characteristics of the psychological crisis are rooted in the specific nature, duration, and repetitive frequency of the traumatic experiences endured by the population. In Ukraine, countless civilians are exposed directly to the horrors of war on a daily basis, frequently bearing the brunt of Russia’s near-constant missile and drone attacks targeting densely populated cities and civilian infrastructure.
Civilians endure repeated, prolonged traumatic events that encompass relentless shelling, military occupation, the harrowing experience of captivity, the loss of cherished family members and friends, the total destruction of their homes, forced displacement, separation from loved ones, and an overarching, pervasive sense of constant uncertainty. Emerging psychological literature emerging directly from Ukraine paints a distinct and complex picture that diverges notably from recent historical conflicts.
By comparison, roughly one in five American service members returning home from deployments in Afghanistan exhibited prominent symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, with the single strongest predictor of those symptoms being direct, frontline combat exposure. A more apt, contemporary structural comparison to the Ukrainian experience can be found in the Israeli population following the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent regional war. Those sudden shocks generated upwards of 30,000 new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among the most heavily traumatized individuals, with an estimated 500,000 Israelis considered at elevated risk for developing the condition.
However, researchers note that differing sampling methods and strict study criteria make direct, apples-to-apples comparisons across recent global conflicts inherently difficult. The specific combination of factors defining Ukraine’s situation—a prolonged, full-scale conventional war, mass internal displacement, and systematic, targeted strikes on civilian infrastructure—does not lend itself to simple, direct extrapolation with past conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel.
Prolonged, repeated traumatic experiences—regardless of whether an individual is a civilian or a soldier—significantly elevate the statistical risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, healthcare systems operating in post-conflict periods consistently run critically short of the financial and human resources required to adequately cover the sheer volume of need, Shevchenko observed.
Despite the severe strain placed upon national resources, Ukraine’s emergence as a recognized global leader in digital technology is actively charting a unique, innovative story in how both ordinary civilians and battle-hardened veterans reckon with the profound psychic toll of modern war.
Reflecting on his personal recovery, veteran Vladyslav Sentiakov remains optimistic about the efficacy of the system that aided him. He expresses a firm belief that the national healthcare system genuinely can help those in need, emphasizing that the most crucial step is simply reaching out to ask for the support required to heal. After successfully completing his structured therapy sessions with a qualified psychologist, his symptoms are significantly more manageable, and he feels fully empowered to move forward with his life.
His core life goals remain just as important to him today as they always were before the conflict reshaped his world.
