Ukraine faces a veterans’ reintegration challenge of unprecedented magnitude. By early 2026, more than 1.4 million combatants were registered as veterans, triple the 2022 figure. Once hostilities cease, a massive wave of service members will transition to civilian life – many displaced, many wounded, and many coping with psychological trauma. This scale exceeds anything seen in OECD countries in recent history, while Ukraine simultaneously faces high poverty, demographic decline, reduced public‑service capacity, and mental‑health infrastructure severely strained by years of full‑scale war. Despite ongoing reforms and the creation of digital tools such as Diia and MARTA, Ukraine’s systems for early needs identification and timely, integrated mental‑health support remain underdeveloped – yet these are precisely the areas that will determine long-term reintegration success.
Policy recommendations for Ukraine
Strengthen early identification and early intervention during transition.
Introduce mandatory, structured pre‑discharge needs assessments covering (mental) health, employability, skills, housing, income situation, and family circumstances.
Create a unified transition pathway linking defence, health, social, employment and education systems to ensure seamless data flow and avoid gaps in support.
Develop a tiered support model: a universal basic package for all transitioning veterans and intensive case management for high‑need groups (e.g. heavily wounded, displaced).
Strengthen employment and skills support, including recognition of military competencies, employer engagement networks, and dedicated counsellors within employment services.
Build local co‑ordination capacity, for example through district‑level veteran service centres, drawing inspiration from France’s departmental model.
Build a timely, integrated mental‑health support system.
Embed mental‑health screening into the demobilisation process, making early detection of PTSD and other disorders a routine part of transition.
Ensure continuity of care by strengthening co‑ordination between military health services and civilian mental‑health providers.
Expand the mental‑health workforce rapidly, using accelerated training pathways in trauma‑focussed therapies, task‑shifting to mid‑level professionals, and structured peer‑support networks.
Scale up community‑based mental‑health services to reach veterans and families early, reduce stigma, and ensure coverage for underserved rural and displaced populations.
Develop targeted programmes for high‑risk groups, including severely injured veterans, those experiencing social isolation, and families facing cumulative stress.
This policy paper focusses on a few elements of veteran support, notably the transition from military to civilian life and various aspects of mental health policies in that transition. It provides a bird’s-eye view of existing policies in Ukraine and in selected OECD countries and informs on work by the OECD Directorate on Employment Labour and Social Affairs in the context of the OECD Ukraine Country Programme (Box 1).