The war must be ended in a way that does not make us Russia and does not return to an inferiority complex — political psychologist Svitlana Chunikhina

Letʼs start with what war is and what happens to people during times of war?

First of all, routine is being destroyed — what is considered the basis of psychological continuity and normality. People are living in extreme circumstances — extreme danger, extreme stress, mobilization of resources, and they donʼt know how long this will last.

But there is another dimension. The genocidal nature of this war has led to citizens throughout Ukraine, at least in the part controlled by Kyiv, unquestioningly identifying themselves with the Ukrainian nation.

Before the full-scale invasion, this sense of unquestionable belonging and identification with Ukrainian society was uncertain. It’s like NATO’s fifth article — an attack on one Ukrainian is perceived as an attack on all. We clearly know who our enemy is, and we defend ourselves against him.

Sociological research conducted on behalf of the UHHRU showed that the vast majority of respondents — 78% — consider themselves and their families to be victims of the war. That is, all these people will need justice and some satisfaction to one degree or another, and transitional justice should work for them...

I wonder what the remaining 22% think and why they do not consider themselves victims. Does this mean that they are not affected by the war?

In fact, people are feeling adequately to the situation now, they are really suffering from the war. The problem will be when the suffering stops and the feeling of victimization remains.

What do you mean?

After the war, the suffering directly related to military actions will stop. But society must heal. This is a whole process that includes reparations, repentance, awareness, mourning, etc. This is called “processing of difficult military experiences”.

People need to live through this experience, think about it, and tell about it. Where justice can be defended, it must be restored. If twenty years later, or a generation later, after the war is over, society is still living with a sense of victimization, it will mean that something went wrong and the healing process failed.

A good example of such a situation is Russia. 80 years have passed since World War II, and they are still fighting it out, rewriting the results, all of these “we can repeat it”, talking about how they still have someone to blame for that war and everyone should bow down to them.

This means that they are still in a pathological and inadequate state. Those veterans are no longer alive. And for them, this war has been completely brought into the mainstream. They are still living it, still fighting it.

And what is justice for Ukrainians? What do they need to heal, what can work specifically for Ukrainians, given our mentality?

If we operate with national identity, then the most obvious sign of justice will be the punishment of the aggressor. Because one of the manifestations of suffering in this war is connected with the fact that they are trying to blur Russiaʼs responsibility and guilt.

Many in the world question or shift the roles of the aggressor and the victim in this war. Partners betray, some openly, some in undercover games. We often see the triumph of the aggressor, starting with the return of Russians to big sports, big politics, big business.

And this is absolutely unfair. We suffer from unprovoked aggression, which remains unpunished. Justice is to unequivocally recognize at all levels the fact of aggression by Russia and clearly attribute its guilt.

And the punishment?

Punishment can be of different degrees: sanctions, reparations, there may be a trial of criminals, there may be a trial of the political leadership. Some of the above may not happen. But the minimum required is recognition by the world that this was an act of aggression, that Ukraine is the injured party, that it was unprovoked.

If we consider it from the perspective of restoring justice, the aggressorʼs admission of guilt is psychologically more important than compensation for material damage. Paying off, paying money, and not admitting guilt does not restore justice.

But are we talking about a global level, such as an aggression tribunal, or a lower level? After all, the scale of the crimes and damage caused by the Russians is so great that it is unlikely that every criminal will be punished, and it is unlikely that every victim or relative of the victim will see their offender sentenced.

Indeed, most likely, not everyone will be punished, it will be a certain percentage. We need to prepare for this, we need to understand that we can live in a world in which not every criminal will be punished.

And then what else can give a person some satisfaction, so to speak, calm the heart?

Nothing will soothe the heart. The healing process is long, and victims, unfortunately, never find immediate relief. Neither revenge, nor punishment of the perpetrator, nor reparations, nor recognition of the fact itself will relieve the pain.

The pain will be long. And our task is to restore as soon as possible the ability to plan for the future, move forward, work productively, and live a peaceful life.

In Rwanda, after the genocide, Gachaca courts were used. This is when the victim told his story, in these same courts the perpetrator could confess to what he did and apologize to the victim. But there is a risk of re-traumatizing the victim.

What I described should not be retraumatizing. One of the psychotherapeutic techniques for working with trauma is to repeat what happened to you several times. This ensures the continuity of the life story. Trauma tears your life apart into before and after.

When you talk about your experience, it is as if you are restoring this integrity between the past and the future. It is as if you are stitching this gap, refining it.

Therefore, narrativization, truth commissions — all these tools should not only recognize the victim and the perpetrator, but also influence the ability to tell their story. So that the victims can sew their own history of the war into the history of the country.

But there should be some kind of control to prevent retraumatization? For example, in the International Criminal Court, not all victims testify before their perpetrators for precisely these reasons.

I think we need to ask the victims about this, because sometimes they want to come and tell, and sometimes the opposite — to remain invisible and forget everything that happened to them.

Separately, I want to talk about one important point in working with victims. Victims need to be given back their subjectivity. Not doing something with them, for them, around them dehumanizes them.

Just like the violence they experienced. Victims need to be communicated with as equals. Yes, communicate with them as victims, but as subjects of their own fate.

Here I can give the example of the Jews, when they were making sense of the experience of World War II, the catastrophe that happened to them. After the Holocaust, numerous cultural, historical and political interventions against them only strengthened their feelings of victimhood and helplessness.

They were horrified not only by what happened to them, but also by how meekly they went to the gas chambers. And then psychologists, in particular Vadym Rotenberg and others, drew attention to the fact that these feelings block recovery. In order to survive the consequences of the catastrophe, people need to feel capable, not powerless.

Here it is worth mentioning Quentin Tarantinoʼs film "Inglourious Basterds" about the battalion of Jewish officers who attempted to assassinate Hitler. Tarantino turned history upside down. He turned the victims into those who resist. This is a good example for us.

Footage from the movie "Inglourious Basterds."

imdb.com / «Бабель»

imdb.com / «Бабель»

And one more thing, now in Ukraine we are practicing this discourse of objectification, this “psychological help” that they are trying to offer to everyone.

As if there are some psychologists who are outside the war and are helping the population. But this is not so.

Because psychologists have also suffered, they are no better, no stronger, and no more worthy. Perhaps here it is better to talk about mutual aid, support, mutual support. This should be equal to equal.

Okay, so how should this work so that the victim remains the subject?

A person should have a choice of tools that they consider best for themselves: if they want, they will go to a psychologist, if they want, they will choose some other option. There should be a list of services, roughly speaking, from which a person will choose what they need.

For example, it could be some kind of voucher that can be used in different ways. The choice option is simple to implement, but it is very psychologically reinforcing.

And what could it be, besides working with a psychologist? Why am I focusing on this, because in the study I started with, 39% of respondents said they had suffered mental trauma due to the war.

What could be the trap here? From the very beginning of the war, we have thought about its impact exclusively in terms of mental health. This is too narrow. War is not only trauma, war is a test, war is also a certain civic growth, both personal and of the entire community.

Our main goal is for society to recover, to heal its wounds, so that they do not remain to rot, as after the World War II or after the Soviet legacy. We must heal in order to plan our lives and build the future, to create a legacy for 100 years ahead.

Ukrainians have never had this, in fact, because our entire history is divided into segments — from catastrophe to catastrophe (war, Holodomor, repression).

We have to digest this catastrophe, bring society out of it, heal it, and finally let it develop for the ages. And justice is a tool. Support, restoration of mental health is a tool. And reparations are a tool. Narrativism is a tool. Subjectification of victims and us as a victimized society is a tool.

And what is narrativization, you repeat this term.

In one way or another, life can be told as a story. This story can be simplified, one-sided, devoid of detail and depth.

But such an emasculated story cannot be the basis for successful communication with others and does not help the deep self-understanding and self-compassion that are essential for psychological recovery. Narrativism then means enriching the life story — with details, facts, nuances. An analogue here can be “enriching public opinion”.

Take, for example, corruption. There is a stereotypical narrative that the Ukrainian government is totally corrupt. It is both true and false.

Firstly, not all of the Ukrainian government is. Secondly, Ukraine is not so unique in this. Thirdly, Ukrainian society is no less invested in corruption. At fourth, large public forces are involved in the fight against corruption in Ukraine.

But if you wake a person up in the middle of the night, they will definitely say that Ukraine is corrupt, everyone steals.

We take this construct in public opinion and begin to enrich it with facts, to add volume. For example, what place Ukraine occupies in the world corruption ranking, due to what parameters, what dynamics do we have, due to what, what role do anti-corruption bodies play, etc. And it may turn out that the issue is not corruption, but distrust of government bodies, for example.

It seems that this tool should be suitable for talking about collaborationism. Because someone in the occupied territories consciously and proactively collaborated with the enemy to harm Ukraine, and someone had no other choice. And there are also people who were kept in basements and tortured by the Russians. And this is all in one community that needs to be stitched together.

Yes, the problem is serious, and the solutions will probably not be easy. But to find these solutions, we need to investigate the events honestly and openly.

Here, perhaps, it is worth starting with some truth commissions, that is, with some careful focusing and collection of information about everything that happened.

We need to tell ourselves about the experience of each person, what life is like in the occupied territories, whether a person had a choice. All this needs to be described in legal language, psychological language, historical language, any language available to us.

Are there any studies on what Ukrainians want when they talk about punishing collaborators?

We conducted a study among teachers from the deoccupied territories, directly asking them how they felt about colleagues who collaborated with the Russians, and it was more about a temporary ban on the profession or suspension.

Although there were also much more radical proposals, for example, to put them behind bars or even execute them. The participants in our research often have a cautious attitude towards what should be done with those involved in collaborationist activities.

Approximately 40% of them believe that collaboration with the enemy in temporarily occupied territories could have been a way to survive, and therefore it is necessary to understand each individual case.

Can rituals be considered healing tools?

Absolutely. Rituals are needed, but not immediately. First, we need to acknowledge the sacrifice, we need to mourn it and tell it. Let ourselves be talked out of it, let it go.

Recognize the scale of what we have lost. We have lost faith in humanity. We have lost a peaceful life. We have lost loved ones. We have lost property. We have lost cities. We have lost the country that it once was. These are all losses. We will have to grieve and cry it out. And after that, rituals.

Recently, a Kharkiv resident wrote on Facebook that she was no longer inspired by the slogan “Kharkiv is indestructible”, because she could no longer hold on and had broken down. And she asked whether Kharkiv residents should cherish this image of indestructibility with all their might if they felt completely wrong.

Some of the comments under her post were very harsh and negative — they said that now it is impossible to whine and complain. People have gritted their teeth and are holding on with all their might. And for some Ukrainians, this is exactly what works, because they feel a significant danger in breaking down, showing weakness.

But for some, contact with their own feelings can be healing. Tears can bring relief. Laughter can too. In any case, after the war is over, it will be necessary to cry it out. Everyone has the right to tears. And the wider this community that is grieving, all the way to Uzhhorod or together with the refugees, the faster the healing will be. And then it can be transformed into rituals.

And there must be glorification. That is, this sacrifice must be balanced with a sense of strength, resilience, and this absolutely extraordinary, unique, and great feat that the Ukrainian people are currently performing.

The whole world is tottering, and only Ukraine is holding on as best it can. And this moment of glorification of those who contributed — the contribution of every Ukrainian, both those at the front and those who lived in cities under shelling, must be recognized.

Of course, this does not mean that this contribution is the same. But in this way we recognize that we all belong to a community that is capable of repelling even such powerful aggression.

It is important that healing stands on two “legs” — glorification and mourning. If there is no mourning, but only glorification — there will be Russia. If there is only mourning, then Ukraine will return to its past state with an inferiority complex and non-subjectivity.