INVESTIGATION: One million wounded Ukrainian veterans, forty deminers — the gap between reality and means

One million. Forty.

Ukraine today counts one million wounded veterans. It has funding to train forty of them as deminers. These two figures, placed side by side in an Euromaidan Press note on June 24, 2026, form one of the most damning portraits of this war — not of what Russia has done to Ukraine, but of what the entire world has not yet done for Ukraine.

Maksym Dobrianskyi lost a leg to a Russian mine. He joined one of those small privately funded programs that transform wounded veterans into essential workers for the country's reconstruction. It is a fine program. Thirty-nine places too few for one million people still waiting.

Why this investigation is necessary

Behind the press conferences and military support announcements, a silent crisis is intensifying: that of broken bodies returning from the front and finding no system equal to their sacrifice. This investigation invents no characters, injects no fabricated emotion — it presents facts and poses the question no one has yet answered frankly.

What does the human reconstruction of Ukraine actually cost? And who is paying — or refusing to pay?

One million wounded. Forty training spots. This ratio is an indictment. Not against Ukraine — against all of us who watch, promise, applaud, and write checks that do not cover the essentials.

A mine, a leg, a decision

Maksym Dobrianskyi was injured by a Russian mine. He lost a leg. In a country where anti-tank and anti-personnel mines have been scattered across millions of hectares — from agricultural fields to the backyards of liberated homes — this type of injury has become routine in the statistics. Not in the life of the man living it.

Rather than wait passively for institutional aid that is slow to arrive, Dobrianskyi joined a donor-funded program that trains wounded veterans in professional demining. This program recognizes something essential: Ukrainian soldiers who have lost the use of a limb have not lost their competence, their courage, or their will to serve their country.

The paradox of a nation rebuilding with its wounded

Ukraine is the world's most heavily mined country. According to various estimates, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian territory are contaminated with unexploded ordnance and mines. This territory cannot be agricultural, habitable, or economically productive until it has been systematically demined — a process that will take decades.

Training wounded veterans as deminers is a brilliant idea: it offers meaningful employment to people whose military skills transfer directly, it accelerates demining, and it gives the war-wounded a continuity of mission rather than passive pension. But for this idea to work at the scale of one million wounded, it requires resources — and that is where the program falls apart.

What does it say about us in the West that a program as sensible as training wounded Ukrainian veterans as deminers receives funding for only forty people? That is fewer than a hockey team's roster. We can do better.

Injuries that defy classification

The figure of one million wounded veterans is simultaneously a raw statistic and a universe of individual suffering. These injuries include amputations, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, vision or hearing loss, severe burns and serious psychological trauma. Each category requires different care, different service chains, and different levels of investment.

In the 1,581 days of open war since February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian military medical system has saved thousands of lives that would have been lost in previous conflicts. Improved first-aid protocols, speed of evacuation, and the quality of field surgeons have kept soldiers alive who would not have survived such injuries before. That is a medical victory — which creates a social and economic challenge of unprecedented scale.

The systemic cost of one million bodies to rebuild

Each wounded veteran requires not only initial medical care, but long-term rehabilitation: prosthetics, physiotherapy, psychological support, vocational retraining, housing adaptation. Per-veteran cost estimates vary, but the order of magnitude is clear: we are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars per person over ten to twenty years.

Multiplied by one million, that is a national-scale financial challenge that Ukraine cannot absorb alone — particularly while continuing to fund an active war. Ukraine's defense budget is consuming a proportion of GDP without peacetime precedent. Resources for veteran rehabilitation must come from elsewhere.

One million people to rebuild. This is not an abstract number — it is an entire generation of Ukrainians who gave their physical integrity to defend their country. Their rehabilitation is a moral debt owed by the West, not merely a line in Ukraine's budget.

The world's most mined country

Ukraine faces one of the most complex demining challenges in modern history. Russian forces used anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, cluster sub-munitions, and unexploded ordnance throughout their advance — during the initial thrust, during hasty retreats, and as a deliberate tactic of contaminating liberated Ukrainian territory.

Liberated territories like the Kharkiv region, areas around Kherson, villages near Kyiv evacuated in March 2022 — all are partially or totally contaminated. Farmers die plowing their fields. Children fall victim to unidentified military objects. Reconstruction workers can only operate in areas previously certified as safe.

Demining as a precondition for any economic reconstruction

No durable reconstruction of Ukraine is possible without systematic demining. Agricultural fields that cannot be cultivated, villages that cannot be inhabited, roads that cannot be traveled safely — all of this represents daily economic losses that accumulate and slow national recovery.

The most conservative estimates speak of decades to fully decontaminate Ukrainian territory. The program training wounded veterans as deminers is designed precisely to accelerate this process by mobilizing a motivated, competent, and available workforce. But forty people will not decontaminate millions of hectares.

Ukraine cannot rebuild on mined fields. Every day that passes without demining is another day a Ukrainian farmer risks his life trying to feed his family. It is a crime Russian mines continue committing long after the front has moved on.

When charity replaces policy

The program that trained Maksym Dobrianskyi is funded by private donors. That is admirable — and problematic. Admirable because it illustrates the concrete international solidarity that goes beyond diplomatic declarations. Problematic because a nation of 40 million people with one million war wounded cannot depend on individual generosity for its rehabilitation system.

Private donations are by nature irregular and unpredictable, often directed toward the most media-visible causes rather than the deepest needs. When cameras move on — to the next conflict, the next natural disaster — donations follow. Ukraine's wounded will remain wounded for the rest of their lives, regardless of the media attention cycle.

The gap between pledges and disbursements

Donor conferences for Ukraine have generated considerable commitments on paper. The reality of actual disbursements is often quite different. Bureaucratic mechanisms, restrictive usage conditions, administrative processing delays, and shifts in political priorities create a gap between what is announced and what actually reaches Ukrainian accounts.

For the specific program training wounded veterans as deminers, the sums involved are relatively modest on the scale of international aid budgets. Funding the training of one thousand additional deminers would cost a fraction of what a single sophisticated weapons system costs. The question is not financial capacity — it is the political will to prioritize human reconstruction as much as combat capacity.

It is more glamorous to deliver a Patriot system than to fund rehabilitation for wounded veterans. I understand the strategic logic. But if Ukraine wins the war with soldiers we have left without rehabilitation afterward, have we truly won anything?

Saturated military hospitals, insufficient civilian resources

The Ukrainian military medical system has demonstrated remarkable adaptive capacity since 2022. Military hospitals have treated volumes of wounded without precedent since World War II for a European country. Ukrainian surgeons are now among the world's most experienced in war traumatology.

But the phase of long-term rehabilitation — which follows initial acute care — exerts a different kind of pressure on the system. It requires equipped rehabilitation centers, multidisciplinary teams (physiotherapists, psychologists, occupational therapists, prosthetics specialists), and extended care over time that the military system alone is not dimensioned to absorb.

Veterans falling through the institutional cracks

Many Ukrainian wounded veterans find themselves in an institutional grey zone: too severely injured to return to active service, not sufficiently covered by existing assistance mechanisms, too proud or too uninformed to request available support. The stigma of disability in post-Soviet societies is real — many veterans hesitate to identify as persons with disabilities, which deprives them of certain rights.

The demining training program that attracts men like Dobrianskyi circumvents this problem: it does not offer assistance — it offers meaningful employment. It does not ask veterans to recognize themselves as disabled — it proposes they become experts in a domain vital to their country's reconstruction. That is psychologically and economically far more effective than traditional welfare.

The resilience of Ukrainian veterans strikes me every time I think about it. These men and women are not looking for pity — they are looking for useful work. Our role, as an international community, is to provide them the tools. Not the handout.

Prosthetics, psychology, housing: three cumulative emergencies

Ukrainian amputee veterans require high-quality prosthetics — not the basic Soviet-era models, but active prosthetics enabling full mobility and a return to physical work. These devices cost between $20,000 and $100,000 depending on the level of amputation and technology involved. Multiplied by the tens of thousands of recorded amputees, the bill is staggering.

Psychological support is equally critical but even less funded. Post-traumatic stress disorder affects a significant proportion of combatants after a conflict of this intensity. Without early and continuous care, this PTSD translates into high suicide rates, increased domestic violence, and social disintegration that will cost far more in the long run than preventive care.

The question of adapted housing

Wounded Ukrainian soldiers often return to housing incompatible with their new physical condition. Soviet-era buildings without elevators, apartments without wheelchair access, rural homes without accessibility equipment — all of this creates daily obstacles that amplify suffering and slow rehabilitation. A program for adapted housing reconstruction is virtually nonexistent at the scale of need.

Several international organizations work on this issue — Humanity & Inclusion, UNHCR, Ukrainian local NGOs — but with budgets covering a few hundred cases where needs number in the tens of thousands. The gap between means and needs cannot be filled by goodwill alone — it requires structural financing policy decisions.

A Ukrainian veteran who cannot climb the stairs to his own apartment has not been rehabilitated — he has been left behind. Every architectural barrier that persists is a symbolic capitulation to what Russia did to him. We need to do better.

Promising initiatives at insufficient scale

Several rehabilitation and retraining programs for Ukrainian veterans have demonstrated their effectiveness. Beyond the demining program, initiatives for training in digital trades, precision agriculture, construction and medical care exist and function — often funded through bilateral partnerships or international NGOs.

These programs share a common feature: they recognize that Ukrainian veterans are competent adults who need opportunities, not compassion. They build on existing strengths — discipline, endurance, sense of responsibility — rather than seeking to compensate for deficiencies. This is the right approach. It is simply underfunded by a factor of 1,000.

The Israeli and American models as reference points

Israel, which has managed a continuous influx of wounded veterans for decades, has developed an integrated rehabilitation system recognized as one of the world's best. The United States, after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, invested tens of billions in the Department of Veterans Affairs — with imperfect but structurally solid results. Ukraine needs an equivalent, built in wartime, funded by the international community.

The Ukraine Reconstruction Conference, held in Gdańsk in June 2026, was an opportunity to launch a dedicated fund for veteran rehabilitation. Announcements were made on energy, infrastructure, business loans. Far fewer on the million broken bodies still waiting.

Gdańsk produced fine declarations. But if in ten years Ukraine has rebuilt its power plants and bridges, and its wounded veterans have not received the rehabilitation they deserved, we will have rebuilt the country without rebuilding its people. That would be half a victory.

Rehabilitation as investment, not expenditure

Investing in Ukrainian veteran rehabilitation is not only moral — it is economically rational. A wounded veteran who receives complete rehabilitation and appropriate professional training can contribute to Ukrainian GDP for decades. A veteran left without support represents a productivity loss, increased social costs, and a risk of community disintegration that will cost far more in the long run than preventive care.

For a country that will need skilled labor for its reconstruction, the human reserve represented by these one million wounded is precious. These men and women have technical skills, military discipline, and proven adaptability. With the right tools, they can contribute massively to national reconstruction.

Demining as a case study in profitable investment

The program training wounded veterans as deminers perfectly illustrates this logic: it costs relatively little, it simultaneously resolves two critical problems (veteran rehabilitation and territory decontamination), and it produces measurable economic value in hectares of agricultural land returned to production.

According to estimates from Ukrainian agricultural economics, each hectare of land cleared of mine risk represents several thousand euros in annual productive value. A single experienced deminer can process dozens of hectares per year. The return on investment from training one thousand deminers rather than forty is massive — and measurable. What is missing is only the political will to commit to it.

This program is not expensive — it pays for itself. Training wounded veterans as deminers simultaneously heals broken souls and liberates imprisoned land. It is social policy that generates economic returns. Why has no one yet funded it at the scale it deserves?

The international community and its obligations

Ukraine has defended, at the cost of one million broken bodies, the values the West claims to defend. Freedom, democracy, national sovereignty, territorial integrity. These values are not free — they carry a human cost that Ukrainians have paid in their flesh. The question of rehabilitating these veterans is not one of international charity — it is a question of moral reciprocity.

The nations of NATO and the European Union that have benefited from Ukrainian resistance — in terms of regional security, deterrence of Russian expansionism, preservation of the European order — have a responsibility toward those who paid the price of that security. This responsibility translates concretely: rehabilitation funds, medical technology transfer, training of specialized care personnel.

Available levers, little used

Several mechanisms would allow rapid increases in funding for Ukrainian veteran rehabilitation. The European Union could create a dedicated fund within its reconstruction program. NATO could establish a best-practice exchange program in military rehabilitation. Bilateral agreements between member states and Ukraine could fund specific programs — demining, prosthetics, psychological support.

These mechanisms exist on paper. What is missing is the political pressure to activate them at the required scale. This pressure will only come when the Western public understands the scale of the problem — which is precisely why it is necessary to talk about Maksym Dobrianskyi and the ratio of one million to forty.

Europe has sanctioned Russia, delivered weapons to Ukraine, welcomed refugees. All of that is good. But as long as the ratio is forty deminers for one million wounded, I cannot say we have done our part. Not even close.

A tally that does not stop

While this investigation is being written, Ukrainian soldiers are being wounded on the Zaporizhzhia front, in the trenches of Donetsk, at positions around Kharkiv. The one million wounded is not a frozen figure — it is a counter still turning. Every day of war adds names to this list.

This reality makes even more urgent the construction of a robust rehabilitation system now, without waiting for the conflict to end. Veterans wounded in 2022 have already needed care for four years. Those wounded in 2025 and 2026 will join an already long queue if the system is not expanded proportionally.

The window of opportunity before the conflict ends

The end of the war, whatever form it takes, will inevitably trigger donor fatigue. Experience from other conflicts — Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia — shows that international attention moves on quickly once the fighting stops. Veteran rehabilitation funding must be institutionalized now, while international solidarity is still active.

If durable financing mechanisms are not created before the fighting ends, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian veterans risk finding themselves in the institutional void that too many veterans of other conflicts know in times of fragile peace. That would be a betrayal of those who gave everything for a freedom they share with us.

Donor fatigue is a reality I have watched emerge after every conflict of my adult life. I hope Ukraine will be different. But I am not just going to hope — there need to be structures, permanent funds, commitments that do not depend on the media attention cycle.

Dignity before everything

Wounded Ukrainian veterans do not want pity — they want dignity. They want employment adapted to their new capacities, access to quality care, decent housing, and the recognition that their sacrifice served a purpose. These demands are modest and legitimate. They should not be hard to meet for nations capable of delivering billion-dollar weapons systems.

The demining program training men like Dobrianskyi meets exactly these expectations: it offers useful, respected, well-paying work that draws on combat-acquired skills. This is the model to replicate — not to let die for lack of funding.

A Ukrainian society that cares for its warriors

Despite insufficient resources, Ukrainian civil society is making remarkable efforts to support its wounded veterans. Ukrainian NGOs, private companies, local communities have developed support initiatives that work at small scale. This social fabric of solidarity is a precious asset — but it cannot indefinitely compensate for the gaps in public policy and international support.

The Ukrainian state, for its part, has launched several veteran rehabilitation programs since 2022 — with progressive but insufficient results given the scale of need. The political will is there. The means are not yet.

Ukrainian society cares for its veterans despite everything. It finds the means, invents the programs, maintains the dignity of those who gave everything. If this society of forty million people, in the middle of a war, can do that — what prevents us, simply, from writing a check?

An uncomfortable mirror

The ratio of one million to forty is an uncomfortable mirror held up to the international community. It reveals that despite all the rhetoric of support for Ukraine, our priorities remain military before human. We fund weapons more easily than rehabilitation. We deliver missiles faster than prosthetics. We organize summits on infrastructure reconstruction but not on body reconstruction.

This is not an accusation of bad faith — it is an observation of systemic imbalance that we need to correct. Ukraine's reconstruction will be incomplete, fragile and morally discredited if it does not begin with those who made that reconstruction possible.

The lesson of Dobrianskyi

Maksym Dobrianskyi lost a leg. He stood back up. He is demining land so other Ukrainians can live on it. That is the Ukrainian response to war: not victimhood, but the transformation of pain into usefulness. What the West must do is ensure this transformation is possible for one million people, not just forty.

This is not a question of means — the West has them. It is a question of political choices. And political choices are made when citizens understand what is at stake. This report has one ambition: to contribute to that understanding.

Dobrianskyi does not complain. He works. He rebuilds. He deserves better than forty places in a barely-funded program. What he deserves is a system — robust, permanent, worthy of the sacrifice he made for a freedom that is not his alone.

Do not wait for peace to prepare for peace

One of the painful lessons of recent conflicts is that veteran rehabilitation systems built after fighting ends always arrive too late and too small. Physical injuries heal poorly when not treated quickly. Psychological trauma becomes entrenched if support is not offered in the months following return. Waiting for peace to build the rehabilitation system condemns hundreds of thousands of people to suffer longer than necessary.

Ukraine must build this system now, in wartime, even imperfectly. The international community must support it in this construction today, not after a hypothetical peace agreement. Every month of delay costs lives that could have been rebuilt, potential that could have been reactivated, people who could have found their dignity and autonomy.

Necessary commitments from Gdańsk and beyond

The Ukraine Reconstruction Conference held in Gdańsk in June 2026 was an opportunity to launch a specialized fund for veteran rehabilitation. Announcements on energy and infrastructure were numerous. Those on human rehabilitation, far fewer. This imbalance must be corrected before the next international conference on Ukraine.

Countries committing to rebuild Ukraine's physical infrastructure — bridges, roads, power plants, hospitals — must commit with the same energy to rebuilding its human infrastructure: veteran healthcare systems, adapted professional training programs, psychological support centers, demining programs. This is an indivisible whole.

The next Ukraine reconstruction summit must have a specific point on wounded veterans. Not a marginal mention. A central point, with quantified commitments and accountability mechanisms. If it is not on the agenda, we have not yet understood what reconstruction truly means.

Beyond speeches, concrete funds

The gap between one million wounded and forty trained deminers is not fatality — it is a choice. A choice made by governments with other priorities, by donors who have not yet grasped the urgency, by an international system that talks about reconstruction without including the people most severely affected.

Closing this gap is achievable. It requires a political decision to create an international fund dedicated to Ukrainian veteran rehabilitation, stable and durable financing mechanisms that do not depend on sporadic generosity, and a vision that understands that the reconstruction of Ukraine begins with the reconstruction of its men and women.

The moral debt that remains to be paid

Maksym Dobrianskyi and the thousands of Ukrainians like him do not need our compassion — they need our concrete commitment. Not applause during speeches at the European Parliament. Not Ukrainian flag emojis on social media. Funds. Programs. Structures. Decisions.

This war carries a human cost we have not yet finished paying. Paying it now, correctly, with dignity — that is what we owe those who paid with their bodies for a freedom we share.

One million wounded. Forty trained deminers. These two figures will stay with me long after writing this article. They represent not the failure of Ukraine — but our collective failure to be equal to those who gave everything for us.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

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