The Russian Military's Looming Personnel Crises of Retention and Veteran Mental Heath

Submission Statement

Russian society has historically failed at reintegrating veterans from their wars of expansion. This article lays out the ways in which the Russian healthcare system is failing veterans of the Ukraine War with trauma or injuries, and the possible long-term impacts of their inability to do so. There are also a few notes on the exact dynamics of Russia's partial mobilization which I had not known before, including that soldiers cannot be discharged are death, retirement, imprisonment, or medical discharge. In other words, contract soldiers whose deadlines for service have expired are being forced to fight on, which cannot be good for morale.

The author notes an interesting line taken by Russian propaganda by tying their service to WW2 imagery. This kind of framing is likely to be ineffective, given that many of those currently returning from the frontlines are former prisoners now terrorizing their communities. I would not be surprised if the negative connotations spread from these prisoners become the dominant stereotype of Russian veterans as a whole, further exacerbating the negative social effects described.

Dara Massicot is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Before joining RAND, she served as a senior analyst for Russian military capabilities at the Department of Defense.

Much attention in recent months has focused on Russia's faltering military offensive and staggering casualties in Ukraine. But there are other problems, largely unnoticed outside Russia, lurking for the country's armed forces and society more broadly. Russia's wartime military-personnel policies, instituted last September, temporarily prohibit active-duty and mobilized soldiers from leaving service. Russia faces a crisis in military retention and a larger social crisis of veteran mental-health disorders when these restrictions are lifted. Just as the terms “Afghan Syndrome” and “Chechen Syndrome” emerged to describe the plight of Russian veterans who lacked support and struggled to adapt to civilian life after those conflicts, it is only a matter of time before “Ukraine Syndrome” grips Russia, as thousands of veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other conditions return home.

Indefinite deployment and inadequate rest and rotation, due to a shortage of soldiers, mean that Russian soldiers endure prolonged exposure to combat stress, which intensifies feelings of resentment and helplessness. When these restrictions are lifted, and they will have to be eventually, the army could face large-scale resignations among officers and other professional soldiers, including those whose contracts expired while fighting in Ukraine. The mood among Russian troops in Ukraine is not easy to gauge, but anecdotal evidence—from social media, intercepted phone calls to families, officer accounts, and other sources—suggests that many are likely to resign as soon as it becomes possible.

Russian forces have sustained more casualties in the past 16 months than in a decade of war in Afghanistan in the 1980s or two campaigns in Chechnya in the 1990s. Casualty estimates vary, from official Russian numbers from late last year (just under 6,000 killed in action), to more than 23,000 confirmed military funerals, according to the BBC and Mediazona, to Western military estimates of 40,000–60,000 killed in action with 100,000–140,000 wounded. The higher estimates are staggering figures, with enormous implications for the future of Russian military power and for Russian society.

The Russian medical system is already straining, even though most Russian soldiers are still deployed. Many hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded. Some of those experiencing severe psychological trauma are discharged untreated.

Spending money on prosthetic limbs and psychiatrists is one thing, creating the right environment for treating PTSD quite another. Russian law was recently changed to criminalize statements seen as discrediting the armed forces. This could discourage returning troops from discussing their wartime traumas candidly, impeding their recovery. Russian authorities are using second-world-war iconography to cast veterans as heroes or liberators, but it is unclear if these efforts will lead to less social alienation than that experienced on their return by soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Symptoms of untreated combat trauma include increased risk of criminal behavior, substance abuse, domestic violence, and problems at work. These issues will be felt all across Russia when the soldiers return home. The domestic prestige of the armed forces, badly dented in the wake of those earlier conflicts, will once again be at risk.