Daily Times

When President Vladimir Putin announced in February that Russian forces were entering Ukraine, a wave of shock washed over 22-year-old student Vasilina Kotova that turned quickly to despair and then depression.

“I didn’t leave my house for two months,” Kotova, a computer science student, told AFP. “I had no energy anymore to do anything. It wasn’t even so much the energy but the desire to do anything, like there wasn’t any point,” she said.

Eight months into the stagnating conflict, fighting in Ukraine has brought with it threats of nuclear weapons, sanctions that have isolated Russians and a conscription drive that has sent thousands fleeing the country.

Kotova is just one among a rising tide of Russians who have grown more anxious and depressed with the conflict grinding on, with its shockwaves being felt back home and the future uncertain.

The result, professionals in the industry say, is a creeping mental health crisis that is spurring shortages of anti-depressants and soaring demand for psychological support. At first, Kotova admitted, she thought that the hundreds of thousands of Russians who rushed to flee after the conflict began were “fools” and that the Kremlin’s “special military operation” would not touch her personally.

But then Putin began drafting hundreds of thousands of men into the Russian army in September and Kotova began to worry her father or brother could be sent to the front. And when Moscow began to sound the alarm — without providing evidence — that Ukraine was preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb, her mother’s concern grew.

“And then you start thinking: ‘what if I’m the real fool?’ and your anxiety just gets worse and worse,” said Kotova. After Putin announced the mobilisation drive, a record number of Russians — nearly 70 percent — reported feeling “anxious”, the Kremlin-friendly pollster FOM said. The independent Levada Centre one month later found that nearly 90 percent of Russians were “worried” by the conflict.