When President Vladimir Putin praised veterans of the war in Ukraine this year as “the elite who defend the Motherland,” he cast them as a generation of men ready to lead Russia into the future. “It’s not frightening to hand the country over to people like this,” he said. Yet the return of Russian soldiers from Ukraine is already straining families and communities, with violent crimes drawing headlines and neighbors on edge. With some 700,000 men still fighting, the country now faces the far larger test of what will happen when they all come home. “War veterans often find it difficult to integrate back into civilian society even with psychological support and rehabilitation programs,” Dr. Jenny Mathers, senior lecturer in international politics at Aberystwyth University, told The Moscow Times. “The absence of such support for many Russian war veterans, combined with the emphasis in Russian society on men displaying certain types of masculine behavior — such as toughness, concealing soft
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