Support of the Population Within the Russian-Ukrainian war: Insider’s Perspective

In a view of Population Mental Health (and even Global Mental Health) the Russian-Ukrainian war could be considered in various aspects. This war is not limited only by political and combatant circumstances. We are currently faced with new significant social and psychological phenomena. In contrast to other recent wars (eg, with Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine), Russian-Ukrainian war has a larger global impact. This war affects daily lives of populations in different countries all over the world. Almost each population (on a global scale) is currently facing changes in social interactions, activities in virtual/informational space, and socio-economic wellbeing. In addition to these, we are faced with Global Fear: fear regarding potential nuclear attacks and nuclear war. The Russian-Ukrainian war did not appear suddenly. Psychosocial “pre-history” of this war is also lying in COVID-19 pandemic. Long-termed social restrictions established since 2020 led to aggravation of social aggression on personal, group, national and global levels. Conflicts between couples, family members and relatives, antirestrictions protests, strikes of anti-vaccinators, “new breath” of military conflicts (Israel-Palestine, Azerbaijan-Armenia, Saudi Arabia-Yemen), big social conflict in Kazakhstan, and now Russian-Ukrainian war—all of these could be considered as one chain, one thread of events. The Russian-Ukrainian war has had many effects on the mental health of the Ukrainian people. We can consider these effects as stages in impacts on mental health: acute reactions—acute disorder—chronic stress/disorder both on personal and societal levels. First stage was associated with shock, feeling of “situation of uncertainty”, “wreck”/ “downfall” of personal ideas and opinions, personal worldview. Particularly, for majority of Ukrainians, this war happened as “a remarkable turn of events”. Most of Ukrainians were suddenly met with unpredictable changes in their lifestyle, in their attitudes towards society and politics, new faces/images in front of them (new “spectrum” of personal behavioral reactions) of relatives, friends, colleagues, other people. Traffic jams, military troops, explosions, attacks, official and unofficial news/information, bomb shelters, restrictions and new rules ... all of these became a new reality of their life. How long this war will continue? What should they do? What is “right” and what is “wrong” in many aspects of their life? Second stage was associated with acute reactions, active searching (searching of new personal senses and values, searching of new forms of social interactions), and rapid changing conditions. They were met with new phenomena: active volunteer movement and self-organization movement in communities. Territorial self-defense organizations, local community patrols (apartment/condominium, house, living district, city/amalgamated territorial community), local community volunteer movements, national and international volunteer movements, charity initiatives from business environment, civil society sector and private persons (sharing of any kinds of own resources for Ukrainian Army Force, for refugees, for anyone who needed help), organization of different hotlines for first psychological aid all of these were arising among Ukrainians. Many civilians left their homes and jobs to go to other places/cities and joined local volunteer movements and organizations. But the main issue, main challenge of this stage could be called “needs in proper coordination and management”. Extensive increasing number of refugees (eg, 35-40,000 new refugees daily in