Ukrainian army reports 2 suicides every week
KYIV. Feb 26 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Armed Forces have already seen 16 suicides of servicemen as of February 24 since the beginning of 2018, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General and Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoly Matios said.
"Two suicides a week over the past two months of this year (16 servicemen, who committed suicide), this is the sheer data of the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations, it is impartial as nothing else [...] Most persons who committed suicide are very young guys born in 1995-1998. This is a horrible truth and the data about those who committed suicide are and cannot be secret," Matios wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.
As many as 518 people out of roughly 313,000 participants of the Ukrainian special operation in Donbas committed suicide, he said.
Psychological rehabilitation courses for participants of the special operation are compulsory, but only 0.1% of all these servicemen were provided with this service by the state in 2017, Matios said.
"I should cry that in February 2017 regional bodies providing social protection to local residents have ceased psychological rehabilitation courses for ATO participants, because state funding was subsequently reduced for this from UAH 49.9 million to UAH 21.9 million (or by 56.1%)," the chief military prosecutor said. The Ukrainian state budget allocates UAH 109 million to these ends in 2018, he said.