Veteran policy touches on so many aspects of Ukrainian life that the list of urgently needed reforms is an unavoidably long one. But if a single theme unites the recommendations presented below, it is that veteran support needs to be institutionally robust and more coordinated.
In light of the reintegration imperatives, practical constraints and risks outlined in the preceding chapters, this chapter proposes a set of policy recommendations intended to strengthen veteran care in Ukraine, preserve and scale up interventions that have proven effective, and fill gaps in policy where appropriate service provision remains insufficient or lacking. The recommendations are divided into four categories, aimed respectively at the key sets of actors most relevant to Ukrainian veteran policy: the Ukrainian government (both the central authorities and regional or hromada-level administrations); private sector enterprises; CSOs, NGOs and related civil society actors; and international donors.
Ukrainian government (at all levels)
Relevant Ukrainian government entities, aided by policymakers, legislators and other officials, need to:
- Finalize and enforce the draft veterans’ code. The aim should be to replace a passive system of social handouts and unsustainable Soviet-era statutory promises with actionable tools to restore human capital. (Such tools would include targeted entrepreneurship grants, subsidized retraining and veteran access to case managers in local communities.) This new approach will prevent severe post-demobilization economic shocks and strengthen social cohesion. Integrating all existing pieces of legislation into one code will help future veterans and their families navigate the new system more easily.
- Elevate the position of minister of veterans’ affairs to the level of deputy prime minister. Veteran care is currently siloed across multiple ministries, creating confusing overlaps for veterans and their families. Making the minister of veterans’ affairs a more senior position would give the office-holder the authority to break administrative bottlenecks, and would help to institutionalize veteran policy as a cross-governmental priority. The minister could set up an interministerial taskforce with the mandate to harmonize policies, align cross-departmental budgets and resolve data-sharing challenges, for example between the MoD (discharge logs), the MoH (medical data) and the MoSP (disability pensions). Such a taskforce should also be responsible for addressing the current ‘vertical’ disconnects between the central government and local hromadas, and for government coordination with civil society and the business sector.
- Continue synchronizing data across ministries to streamline veteran support services. A single status update in the Unified State Register of War Veterans should automatically notify health and employment systems to prepare local support without requiring veterans to resubmit documentation to multiple agencies or offices.
- Expand networks of veteran spaces and widen access to local veteran support specialists. Local communities are the primary sites where housing, social care and local services are delivered. Central policy directives frequently stall at the local level, especially in hromadas that lack specialized staff, financial resources or clear guidance on how to execute national mandates. Training certified case managers who can navigate state systems, and employing these managers at designated veteran spaces or municipal administrative centres, will immensely benefit veterans and their families, and help the country’s support services to manage case numbers more efficiently.
- Improve and expand local social service capacity in communities. When a veteran support specialist refers a veteran to a medical professional or other service provider, the referral is only as effective as the community’s capacity to deliver targeted care. In many cases, developing this capacity will require communities to expedite training and credentialling of mental health professionals so that those tasked with looking after veterans have recognized competency related to military culture. Investing directly in local provider infrastructure will ensure that veterans receive immediate, high-quality support within their communities.
- Establish an international research hub, collaborating with academic bodies and international partners to maintain a longitudinal database on research around veteran reintegration and support for veterans’ families. There is an ever-growing body of research on veterans’ needs and views, although these efforts tend to be fragmented and project-based. A centralized, international research hub could develop standardized survey questions and run regular interviews and focus groups to track indicators over time, such as on employee retention rates and community belonging. In turn, such data could help international donors to allocate funding more efficiently. Policies often treat veterans as a monolithic group, ignoring crucial demographic variations and differences in combat experience and post-combat needs. Currently, there are no reliable comparable data on different veteran cohorts, or on geographical differences in veterans’ needs and access to support services. Research collaborations created through this hub could focus on disaggregating data by gender (e.g. addressing specific health and career needs of women veterans), displacement status (e.g. tracking internally displaced veterans who have lost their housing), disability category (e.g. differentiating care needs for those requiring long-term specialized prosthetics) and geography (e.g. identifying service coverage gaps between major metropolitan areas and rural hromadas).
- Create a separate section on the Veteran PRO website that integrates information on key services provided by prominent CSOs. This could be a collaborative project to emphasize the fact that government and civil society can contribute jointly to the ever-growing marketplace of social services available to veterans and their families. One potential model for such a project is the UK government’s directory of support services for veterans and their families; the directory lists, under thematic sections, the services provided by the government as well as those provided by charities, thereby enabling veterans to avoid having to look up services in two or more places.
- Promote state procurement of veteran-focused services from CSOs, including by establishing a formal quality assurance and certification framework for such entities and their services. Specific procurement mechanisms already exist, but they remain limited in scale and fragmented. For example, the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation runs grant programmes that directly allocate state funds to CSOs to deliver veteran reintegration, psychological support and business assistance. Local authorities can also contract private non-profits. Standardizing CSO services through a certification scheme, potentially led by the MoVA, would enforce adherence to clinical and ethical benchmarks for trauma care. It would enable transparent allocation of public funds directly to the most impactful CSOs committed to veteran support.
- Partner with Ukrainian CSOs, education programmes, media organizations and businesses to promote national awareness campaigns on trauma-informed communication, and mandate comprehensive sensitivity training across all sectors. Public interactions with veterans can often inadvertently trigger retraumatization and social misunderstanding – for example, if civilians are unsure how to discuss sensitive subjects with veterans. To establish a supportive environment, the government should deploy nationwide multimedia campaigns to combat harmful stereotypes and normalize mental healthcare. Simultaneously, this effort must be backed by compulsory trauma-informed communication training modules for civil servants, healthcare workers, administrative service centre (CNAP) personnel, law enforcement officers and public transport operators. Employer awareness of existing policy guidance on fostering inclusive workplaces should be increased. Ultimately, the media must frame veterans as valued citizens to whom society owes an inclusive environment and dignity-preserving help with their return to civilian life.
- Institutionalize mandatory veteran representation within local government by establishing formal veteran advisory councils or offices directly attached to local mayoral bodies and hromada councils. By granting these councils the right to review local development plans, budget allocations and social service policies, Ukraine can ensure municipal policies reflect the real needs of its defenders and empower veterans to actively shape their home communities.
- Establish a compulsory, national peer-to-peer residency and exchange programme for local government representatives, to accelerate the spread of high-quality veteran policies across hromadas. An exchange system of sorts already exists, but only on a voluntary basis. For example, Lviv, widely recognized as a leading hromada on comprehensive veteran integration models, has put in place a residency scheme to share its experience with other cities. This approach could be institutionalized and scaled up through the MoVA in partnership with local communities. Municipal officers could travel to other hromadas to observe local support programmes in action, attend workshops and return with concrete operational blueprints tailored to their home communities. Introducing structured peer exchanges would resolve a major implementation gap across Ukraine, wherein regional disparities leave many hromadas struggling to offer more than basic, ad hoc veteran programmes while the use of innovative, highly effective local solutions remains isolated in a few pioneering municipalities. By creating a formalized mechanism for cross-community sharing of best practice, Ukraine can rapidly scale up proven reintegration methods, maximize the impact of municipal budgets and establish a consistently high standard of veteran care across every hromada in the country.
Ukrainian private sector
Private enterprises represent one of the major potential sources of employment for returning veterans. To ensure a smooth transition, provide appropriate support and make best use of veterans’ talents and skills, private sector firms should be encouraged to do the following:
- Create the executive role of chief veterans’ officer (CVO) to lead corporate reintegration strategies. An explicit requirement should be that the role itself be taken by a qualified veteran. CVOs could help companies implement internal inclusivity frameworks, based on toolkits such as Praktyka (see Chapter 3), and could assist HR departments in implementing trauma-informed onboarding protocols and adaptation policies. Because veterans returning to the civilian workforce must navigate unique shifts in culture and identity, a CVO who is themselves a veteran is more likely to be able to establish instant trust and serve as a bridge between corporate culture and military veterans. A CVO who has served in the military can also more accurately evaluate a candidate or employee’s military experience, so that veterans can be placed in roles where their skills deliver maximum business value.
- Establish structured peer-to-peer mentorship programmes that pair returning service members with colleagues who have already navigated the transition from the military to the civilian workforce. Veterans who share combat experience can provide psychological safety, career guidance and empathy in a way that non-veteran staff cannot replicate. Peer-to-peer and psychological support services of this nature would facilitate veteran onboarding and smooth the cultural transition from military to civilian life, thereby potentially increasing long-term retention rates of veterans by companies.
- Implement trauma-informed care and physical accommodations in the workplace. Employers should provide training for HR managers and middle management on military culture, trauma triggers and mental health awareness. These programmes will help establish an inclusive corporate culture by combating stigma among civilian employees, setting realistic performance expectations during onboarding, and recognizing the unique leadership skills veterans bring to Ukrainian businesses. Companies should conduct audits of their facilities so that physical workspaces can be adapted for wounded or disabled service members; employers should also offer flexible work hours for veterans managing ongoing physical rehabilitation, mental health treatments or family care responsibilities. Such adjustments would make veterans feel valued as employees, potentially encouraging them in turn to become ‘ambassadors’ assisting in the transition and onboarding of future returnees.
- Maintain continuous communication and offer support-related resources (such as legal, psychological and financial assistance) to existing employees who are currently away from the workplace on active military duty, well before their official discharge and return to their civilian roles. This will smooth veterans’ return to the workplace and strengthen their sense that their service to the country is valued.
- Establish corporate remembrance practices, which may include observing daily rituals (e.g. the national minute of silence) or providing quiet spaces for reflection. This approach signals genuine appreciation for employees’ military service while preserving psychological boundaries and fostering a supportive workplace environment.
- Co-create personalized professional roadmaps that offer tailored retraining, flexible working conditions and meaningful work opportunities, allowing veterans to direct their own professional growth. This also means avoiding generic, one-size-fits-all reintegration packages. Giving veterans agency over their career trajectory is not only empowering for the employees in question, but will help them to contribute more effectively to the businesses in which they work.
Ukrainian CSOs and other non-profits
Researchers at Chatham House have long advocated a more prominent and structured role for civil society in supporting Ukraine’s recovery. CSOs already do a huge amount for veterans and are part of the backbone of critical support services, but more coordination of their efforts would be beneficial. To this end, this paper recommends that Ukrainian civil society actors take the following steps:
- Establish a coalition of CSOs that can collaborate to create and maintain a live, interactive map cataloguing the veteran support available from CSOs. This would operate in a similar way to how Veteran PRO aggregates and systematizes information, including contact details, on government services for veterans and their families. Another good model is the ‘Nashi Tut’ platform, which has an interactive map showing the location of rehabilitation centres, sports clubs and veteran hubs. A tool of this type should be used as an open-access, digital platform that the national government could potentially integrate into its own Veteran PRO ecosystem. Systematic tracking of available services would enable governmental and non-governmental actors alike to optimize resource allocation, identify service gaps and foster cross-sector partnerships, ensuring that every veteran is efficiently guided towards available resources.
- Implement a robust, decentralized monitoring framework in collaboration with the MoVA to evaluate how national mandates are being executed at the hromada level. Systematic tracking would highlight where local delivery is falling short, and would improve administrative accountability by providing government officials and CSOs alike with real-time data to target interventions and funding more effectively. CSOs often have on-the-ground relationships and information that would leave them best placed to implement such a framework.
- Launch nationwide public awareness campaigns, paired with community-level dialogue projects, to bridge the cultural and psychological divide between civilians and returning combatants. CSOs should partner with local government, cultural centres, educational institutions and media organizations to deliver training on trauma-informed communication, and to facilitate meetings between veterans and local communities. Veterans frequently report feelings of alienation due to civilian misunderstandings of combat trauma. Educating communities would reduce social friction and promote public perceptions of veterans as active members of Ukrainian society.
- Collaborate with journalists and media experts to refine and disseminate guidelines on how veterans should be portrayed in national and local media. CSOs could consider issuing quarterly reviews monitoring media compliance with ethical guidelines. Other helpful instruments could include running workshops on how to implement trauma-informed interview protocols.
- Coordinate with Ukrainian diaspora networks to establish veteran hubs and communal spaces abroad tasked with providing comprehensive assistance to current veterans and their families and to future arrivals. Providing assistance with access to specialized medical care, pro bono legal guidance, peer support, mentorship programmes and language courses, diaspora organizations can facilitate the rehabilitation and social integration of veterans and their families in host countries. Overall, these spaces will provide crucial practical and emotional support, reduce financial and administrative burdens on host nations’ public infrastructure, and safeguard Ukraine’s human capital for post-war recovery.
International donors
International support and investment have a role to play not only in Ukraine’s immediate war effort but in recovery and veteran care. To help Ukraine develop, roll out and maintain improved veteran services, international donors should:
- Set up a permanent civil society council within the Ukraine Donor Platform (UDP), and mandate that at least 15 per cent of the new council’s seats be designated for veteran-led organizations and veteran reintegration experts nominated by CSO networks. This new council would in effect mirror the UDP’s existing Business Advisory Council, which helps the Ukrainian government to improve its regulatory and business environment and guides international investors on mobilizing private capital for Ukraine’s recovery. However, unlike the existing situation in which UDP engagement with CSOs relies on ad hoc, informal consultative roundtables, the new council would give CSOs more formalized policy influence. For international partners investing in Ukraine’s recovery, achieving an adequate return on investment depends on long-term social stability, security and economic resilience, all of which require successful veteran reintegration. By incorporating veteran and civil society voices at the strategic level, international partners can ensure that financial assistance is directed towards the real needs and priorities of veterans and their families.
- Move away from short-term project grants towards provision of core operating funds on a three- to five-year timeline, with funds allocated directly to Ukrainian CSOs and local municipal hubs. Veteran support, from lifelong prosthetic care to long-term economic integration, requires multi-year institutional funding. However, many international donors fund project-based initiatives with much shorter grant cycles. Extending grant cycles will provide financial stability for veteran-care projects, allowing these initiatives to retain professional expertise and ensure continuity of care.
- Invest in training local Ukrainian professionals, such as up-skilling municipal social workers, expanding the pool of Ukrainian mental health professionals and building local prosthetic maintenance labs. This will ensure that expertise stays inside Ukraine long after international aid organizations eventually scale back operations, and that veterans and their families can continue to access high-quality services in their host communities and regions.
- Support CSOs committed to expanding coverage of veteran services to rural hromadas and other communities lacking adequate capacity. For example, this can be done by co-funding mobile veteran support vehicles to allow specialists to reach rural or remote areas. A critical vulnerability in Ukraine’s veteran support infrastructure is the severe geographic disparity in care, as physical CNAPs are concentrated in major urban centres.
- Track the effectiveness of veteran initiatives alongside indicators of veterans’ satisfaction and long-term socio-economic integration over time. There is insufficient data tracking the effectiveness of veteran policies. This leaves policymakers blind to whether any particular initiative boosts long-term societal integration or merely offers short-term relief. Establishing independent evidence loops would ensure state resources and international funding are allocated to known high-impact programmes while holding service providers accountable for measurable integration outcomes.
- Co-finance micro-grant schemes (e.g. by expanding initiatives like the state eRobota platform) to pool public and donor capital directly into veteran-owned businesses. Among other features, these schemes should provide tailored business incubation services, financial literacy training, and grants to incentivize entrepreneurs who are war veterans to hire fellow veterans. Directing capital into veteran-led ventures will also bolster local tax receipts and accelerate national recovery.
