Ukraine contends with how to heal from war

When the physiotherapist at the rehabilitation centre in Kyiv asks the group of wounded Ukrainian veterans to all stretch out their legs, some chuckle.

"Only if you still have anything to stretch!" says Oleksandr, a 31-year-old serviceman whose leg had to be amputated below the knee after he stepped on a land mine.

The atmosphere in the gym filled with veterans undergoing rehab mixes dark humour and flirtation with the physiotherapist with the weight of psychological scarring.

Oleksandr said he "quickly accepted" his life had changed after he was wounded in eastern Ukraine last November.

He is receiving help from the Pushcha Vodytsia centre, one of 488 rehabilitation facilities across Ukraine.

Almost 10 million Ukrainians are suffering psychologically because of the stress of war: WHO

The World Health Organisation has estimated that almost 10 million Ukrainians are suffering psychologically because of the stress of war launched by the Kremlin nearly three years ago.

The government believes some five million veterans will need support after the war -- an enormous challenge for a health system inherited from the Soviet Union.

"We've all seen old Soviet films with veterans of the war in Afghanistan in the street, vodka in their hands," Oleksandr said.

Attitudes towards therapy have changed radically since the start of Russia's invasion.

Occupational therapist Maksym Andrusenko said one centre had offered him a job as a driver before the war suggesting to him that back then skillsets like his were "not taken seriously".

He laughed off once prevalent Soviet-style methods like mud baths suggesting they did "more harm than good". He told AFP the war had forced an overhaul in rehabilitation practices citing the introduction of yoga and music therapy to trauma patients.

"Our foreign colleagues say we have achieved in a short time what some countries would have taken 10 years to do," he said. The health ministry told AFP that Ukraine has 11,000 rehabilitation experts.