The support system, as noted during the event by Oksana Shvets, Municipal Finance Adviser at U-LEAD, is formed at three levels of governance: state, regional and local.
“The state level sees the legislative process and the adoption of state programmes for supporting war veterans and their families. However, you need to understand one simple thing: policy is formed at the state level but implemented at the municipal one. At the local — primary — level, local self-government bodies have an easier time achieving synergy between all key actors including state and local authorities, enterprises, institutions, organisations, local business community and civil society. And this adds up to a powerful resource force,” said Oksana Shvets.
The Kalush City Council uses a hybrid support model, which encompasses various components involving local self-government bodies, NGOs as well as pilot projects of state programmes. According to the Social Protection Department, as of November 2024, there are 368 participants in hostilities, 300 persons with war-related disabilities and 238 families of the fallen defenders of Ukraine in the municipality. And these figures are growing with each passing month.
“The veteran policy is now the most pressing concern. Veterans return from the war every day, and we must now think about their comfort and well-being. To be specific, we need to think about their further employment, preferential housing programmes and other issues,” said Andrii Naida, Mayor of Kalush.
According to him, the municipality runs a number of social protection programmes available to veterans, participants in hostilities and persons with war-related disabilities. The Social Protection Programme for 2023–2025 provides for social care for the defenders of Ukraine and their families, and the funding allocated for it this year is over UAH 24 million.
A separate subdivision and veteran space are a must today
To manage the work with veterans and their families, the Kalush municipality set up the Department for Veteran Policy. And to run it effectively, a person with relevant expertise was engaged. Due to his considerable experience, war veteran Ilia Titko is the one who communicates with war veterans, families of the KIA, MIA, captured, demobilised and wounded military personnel.
The municipality also offers a veteran space founded in cooperation with the Pure Hearts NGO. Here, experts work on re-adjusting military personnel to civilian life: they provide psychological support, individual and group therapy sessions, legal advice and primary legal assistance. They have already established a practice of field visits to starosta districts, enterprises and veterans with limited mobility. In various areas of support for servicepersons and their families, as well as the KIA and MIA military personnel, the Kalush City Council cooperates with nine NGOs and charities.
The Kalush City Social Services Centre also offers psychological assistance to servicepersons and their families, families of the KIA, deceased and MIA defenders of Ukraine. Moreover, as was stated by the Deputy Mayor of Kalush Nataliia Kinash, since October of this year, specialists in supporting war veterans and demobilised persons have been introduced into the staff of the Kalush City Social Services Centre to act as case managers in practice. This enables them to streamline the system of transition from military service to civilian life for a serviceperson.
Social guarantees for war veterans
The municipality’s veteran policy and programmes do not end with advisory, legal and psychological assistance. Other areas of support for veterans in Kalush include free rehabilitation of children of participants in hostilities; free visits to sports facilities and rehabilitation classes by war veterans or their families under the Active Parks programme; and public transport discounts.
The local budget allocates funds for discounted orthopaedic and surgical services for war veterans at the Kalush City Council Dental Clinic. These services are in demand, given that more than 570 veterans have used them since the beginning of the year alone. And since April of this year, servicepersons from any village or city of Ukraine can also have prosthetics done at this facility under the pilot project of the National Health Service.
Furthermore, the Kalush City Primary Care Centre offers subsidised medical care for veterans under the designated budget programme: subsidised prescriptions are covered by the city budget. Since the beginning of the year, about 1,300 veterans have received such prescriptions. Likewise, the Kalush District Hospital opened a rehabilitation department for the needs of veterans with a 35-bed inpatient unit and an outpatient capacity of another 20 persons. In addition to physical rehabilitation and occupational therapy, it offers speech therapy and a number of various adaptive technologies. There is also specialised equipment available for restoring coordination, balance and gait and even a regular kitchen where a person can rebuild their household skills.
The Kalush municipality has recently seen the opening of yet another rehabilitation centre, 4.5.0 Prykarpattia, which aims to promote the reintegration of veterans, their families and families of fallen defenders into civilian life.
Awareness-raising campaign and memorial events
An important element of veteran policy is to communicate information about available services to people who need them. To this end, the Kalush municipality is establishing a system for informing war veterans, military personnel and their families about programmes available to them. It includes the city council website and basic printed leaflets with information on where to apply to with certain needs. The municipality’s veteran space and Social Services Centre are actively involved in the system as well.
Another direction of veteran policy in the broad sense, as it is practised in the Kalush municipality, are memorial events to commemorate the memory of the heroes who died in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The municipality is implementing Ukraine Remembers Its Heroes, a project which involves featuring portraits of fallen defenders on billboards. Together with the Memories Through Ages NGO, the City Council is also installing interactive memorial plaques commemorating the heroes who died in the fight for the Independence of Ukraine. By scanning the QR code on the plaque with the portrait of a fallen defender, you can learn about their life and their fight.
Earlier this year, residents of the Kalush municipality, who lost their loved ones in the war, planted an oak grove, which now became a memorial site, continuing the campaign to commemorate the fallen soldiers, Living Without You. A plaque with the name of the fallen hero was installed near each of the 229 planted oaks to keep the memories of them alive.
Furthermore, 587 types of services are provided for veterans and their families and various support models are active today in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
It is essential for local self-government bodies to have a long-term vision of the principles of veteran policy in the municipality, so that when war veterans return home, the veteran support system in the municipality engages with them and offers them relevant services in all areas.
