When Russian 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 reporters.
“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.
Photo: AFP
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 shock waves 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 said, 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.
However, 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.
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,” Kotova said.
After Putin announced the mobilization 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.
The pollster said 57 percent backed talks with Kyiv — up 9 percentage points from the previous month — suggesting growing support for a speedy resolution.
Around Kotova, that concern is beginning to show.
Last month, after Putin said the world was facing “perhaps the most dangerous and unpredictable decade” since World War II, local media reported that some residents of her neighborhood had begun building a bomb shelter in a nearby underground parking.
Others, including Kotova, are turning to more conventional coping aid: medication.
She said the measure has had a positive impact.
In the first nine months of the year, spending on drugs to cope with depression jumped 70 percent year-on-year, official figures showed.
The YouTalk psychological consultation service has seen “the number of online requests increase by 40 percent since the mobilization,” its cofounder Anna Krymskaya told reporters.
Clients concerned about depression have grown by 50 percent in that time, she said.
The growing sense of doom is being felt across Russia’s political divide.
Ilya Kaznacheyev says he was “happy and proud” when Putin launched Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
However, the 37-year-old has been in a state of “permanent anxiety” since March after Russian troops failed to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
“What’s worse than a war launched? A war lost,” the bearded man told reporters in a Moscow bookstore.
Kaznacheyev said he was considering taking anti-depressants and was worried about shortages of imported drugs due to Western sanctions.
Zoloft, one of the most commonly prescribed medications, has already disappeared from pharmacies in the Russian capital.
“A lot of people rushed to stock up,” neurologist Oleg Levin told reporters. “And they did the right thing.”
Irrespective of their stance on Ukraine, “everyone is worried about the future,” Levin added.
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