As Ukraine moves through the challenges of full-scale war and reconstruction, social care remains one of the most decisive yet overlooked pillars of resilience. From childcare and elder care to support for people with disabilities and veterans, these services determine whether communities can function, adapt, and recover. This text highlights why investing in social care is key to building a stronger, more inclusive future.
Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion continues to transform every aspect of life in Ukraine from security and energy supply to healthcare, education, and welfare. Amid constant destruction, displacement, and economic strain, the question of recovery is no longer limited to rebuilding infrastructure or restoring the economy. It is equally about rebuilding the social fabric: ensuring that communities, families, and individuals have the care and support systems needed to endure and heal.
In this context, strengthening Ukraine’s care system becomes a matter of national security and resilience. A sustainable and inclusive recovery demands that the state invests not only in housing, schools, and hospitals, but also in people who create services invisible for many, but crucial for the system: social workers, nurses, caregivers, and women who provide daily support for their families under extreme conditions of the full-scale invasion.
Four Ukrainian experts – sociologists, researchers, and practitioners – gathered in Berlin for a roundtable discussion organized by Kyiv Dialogue to address one of the least visible yet most vital aspects of Ukraine’s recovery: social care. Moderated by Galyna Kotliuk, Program Coordinator at the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Kyiv Office, the conversation brought together:
- Olena Strelnyk, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and fellow at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS);
- Oksana Dutchak, Deputy Director of the Center for Social and Labor Research;
- Oksana Koliada, Head of the NGO Prostir mozhlyvostej [Space of opportunities] and former Minister for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
Together, they explored the profound challenges facing Ukraine’s care system, from the gendered burden of unpaid care work and the chronic undervaluation of care professions to the urgent need for accessible palliative services and comprehensive veteran reintegration. In a country where care for children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and veterans remains critically under-resourced amid growing wartime needs, the discussion underscored that social care is not a peripheral issue but the backbone of Ukraine’s resilient recovery. The following text summarizes the key points and insights shared during the discussion.
Oksana Dutchak noted that hierarchies of care lie at the core of the problem, where healthcare is prioritized, followed by education (including pre-school education) and palliative care, whereas social services sit at the very bottom. While there are multiple problems with low salaries and hard-working conditions in all the public care sectors, the hierarchical imbalance leaves those who work in social care – nurses, social workers, and caregivers – facing heavy workloads, the lowest pay, and limited recognition. Many professionals, especially in frontline cities, are leaving their posts, which further increases the burden on those who remain.
Without better working conditions, stable funding, and systemic reform, the collapse of these essential services risks undermining both community resilience and national recovery.
Another major challenge is the underdevelopment of palliative care. Access to such services is limited, and the shortage of trained specialists makes dignified end-of-life care unavailable for much of the population. We see huge regional disparities, with the best technologies and social care resources concentrated in major cities, leaving rural and war-affected areas without adequate support. Expanding community-based care and securing long-term public investment are vital for restoring the dignity and quality of life for patients and their families.
The crisis in care is deeply rooted in gender-based inequalities. Women carry the overwhelming share of unpaid care work: raising children, supporting elderly relatives, or caring for injured partners returning from the front. The limited availability of institutional forms of support increases the burden on women in the care sector, leading to exhaustion, financial strain, and reinforced gender inequality. Olena Strelnyk pointed out that the political implication of an “investment in the future” creates a kind of hierarchy of whose care needs are considered most important. Those who contribute directly to the military effort or to the idea of “investing in the future” are at the top. As a result, it becomes very difficult to advocate for groups whose needs do not fit into these reasonings, such as older people and their family caregivers.
A sustainable recovery requires that care work be recognized as a shared social responsibility, not a private duty.
The war has made these structural weaknesses painfully visible. Providing both security and care has become an impossible balancing act for many communities. Yet care is inseparable from defence: the ability of a society to withstand and recover from trauma depends on the strength of its social infrastructure.
Caring for people means strengthening resilience and supporting those who uphold daily life despite destruction and loss.
One of the most urgent dimensions of this challenge concerns veteran reintegration, as Oksana Koliada strongly emphasized. Ukraine will soon have around 2 million current or future veterans, including 377,000 young people aged 18-35, who will form a significant part of the Ukrainian labour market. They, along with their families, will require long-term social, psychological, and economic support. Local governments, however, often lack the capacity to provide such services.
Possible solutions to this problem include veteran case managers who coordinate individual support across institutions and community-based veteran hubs that offer psychological, legal, and employment assistance – steps that have already been taken in Ukraine to help strengthen the system.
In parallel, veteran hubs, community-based centres operating across numerous regions of Ukraine, provide spaces where veterans and their families can receive a wide range of services and engage in community life. Their activities include psychological counselling, legal assistance, career development programmes, and professional retraining. Many hubs also offer sports activities and physical rehabilitation, women’s clubs, business incubators for veteran entrepreneurs, and mobile assistance teams that reach those unable to access services in person. They frequently host regional training centres; organise leisure activities for veterans and their children; and carry out monitoring, analysis, and advocacy campaigns to protect veterans’ rights and improve policy implementation.
These hubs now operate in 16 regions of Ukraine. Together, spreading case management and expanding veteran hubs represent a significant shift toward a more holistic, community-centred model of veteran support, one that recognises veterans both as beneficiaries of services and as integral contributors to Ukraine’s resilience and long-term recovery. These efforts must be scaled, properly funded, and embedded in a broader strategy that sees veterans not as passive recipients of aid, but as a vital part of Ukraine’s human capital.
Ultimately, social care is not a secondary issue in Ukraine’s recovery, it is its foundation. A society cannot rebuild on weakened social systems or exhausted caregivers. Strengthening care infrastructure, ensuring fair working conditions, redistributing responsibilities between state and family, and investing in the well-being of those who care for others are essential for creating a resilient Ukraine – one capable not only of surviving war, but of sustaining life after it.