By Kontur | 2025-07-16

Vladislav Kalugin once led men into battle as part of Russia's war in Ukraine. Today, he sits in a cramped apartment in Kostroma, retraining in 3D modeling while clinging to a modest job producing digital copies of apartment buildings. His story recently aired on Life Goes On, a state-backed television show designed to rehabilitate Russia's war veterans -- at least in the eyes of the public.

But Kalugin is part of a larger, more troubling reality: a growing population of combat-hardened men whom Russian society does not want back. Despite the Kremlin's attempt to brand these men as patriotic symbols, employers and public institutions have quietly made their position clear.

Veterans of the so-called "special military operation" (SMO) are not welcome in positions of public trust. Not in schools, not around children and not in any role that demands control of one's emotions.

Yet behind the scenes, some lawmakers are working to change that.

A quiet push into schools

In March, lawmakers in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Yugra) proposed relaxing qualification requirements to allow SMO veterans to work in schools -- even those with no prior teaching experience.

The proposal calls for hiring veterans as instructors for Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland, a newly expanded subject that replaced Russia's standard life safety curriculum.

"We propose introducing amendments that would allow combat veterans to be employed by educational institutions as instructors in the fundamentals of security and homeland defense," said Duma Deputy Speaker Natalia Zapadnova, as cited by FederalPress.

The proposal outlines only minimal prerequisites: a year of military service, basic vocational retraining and no requirement for prior classroom experience.

"This will facilitate the employment of participants in the SMO upon their return and support their swift reintegration into society," added Boris Khokhryakov, speaker of the Yugra regional parliament.

But this initiative runs directly counter to the pattern already emerging across Russia. Even as the state elevates veterans in rhetoric, employers are reluctant to hire them.

Front lines and family violence

Independent outlet Verstka reported in February that more than 750 Russian civilians have been victimized by returning veterans -- at least 378 killed and 376 seriously injured. The data include both pardoned convicts and enlisted soldiers. A third of all victims are women or girls. Most of the violence takes place at home and often involves alcohol or drugs.

The real number is likely far higher. Government agencies do not publish court rulings related to SMO veterans, leaving journalists to compile incomplete statistics from scattered public records.

Russian "soldiers returning from Ukraine develop symptoms of hyper-arousal, aggression, emotional numbness and fight-or-flight responses, which easily turn into violence," said Boboyor Turayev, a political psychology analyst, in an April interview with Kontur. "Repeated involvement in murder and violence lowers moral barriers."

The danger is nationwide. More than 200,000 Russian prisoners have gone to the front, according to reporting by BBC Russian Service last June.

Many of them now return with criminal records expunged, having served their sentences in combat.

Now the Kremlin is trying to help them integrate quietly into civilian life, with limited oversight and virtually no accountability.

Half remain unemployed

However, absorption of these veterans has proven to be a struggle.

As of May 1, only 57% of demobilized veterans from Ukraine had found employment, according to Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova.

Of those, about 80% signed formal labor contracts; the rest registered as freelancers or self-employed.

The government has developed an action plan to address this problem, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said in June. The goal, he claimed, is to ensure veterans "not just find work but also improve their skills and qualifications and even acquire a new profession."

But those promises are largely theoretical. Most actual job listings -- for example, in Chelyabinsk's regional veteran job bank -- are in construction, private security or low-skilled industrial work. Even there, turnover is high.

Alexei, a 29-year-old veteran from Yekaterinburg, told FederalPress in February that he now struggles with chronic pain and psychological burnout.

"I last two or three months at most. Then I leave. But I have to feed my kids." His wife retrained as an office manager to support the family.

The few veterans who do find work tend to land in roles that require no interaction with the public: delivery drivers, construction crews, remote office work. Positions that place them in charge of pupils are the exception, not the rule.

A state of tolerance, not trust

"The psychological factor is extremely important here. We understand that a large number of men have certain syndromes... something we saw after both the first and second Chechen wars. But this calls for careful selection and understanding: no two employees are exactly alike," security analyst Pyotr Fefelov told RTVI in June.

And yet, in some cases, veterans are not just allowed near schools -- they are celebrated by them.

According to TASS, more than 200 schools now bear the names of SMO veterans. Some serve as instructors or lead "military-patriotic clubs" aimed at cultivating loyalty to the state and familiarity with military doctrine.

"This is a perversion of the values on which the system for educating and raising children should be built," journalist Sabohat Rakhmonova told Kontur in April. "Naming schools after aggressors is real blasphemy."

Meanwhile, courts routinely treat military service as a mitigating factor during sentencing. Veterans accused of crimes often receive reduced penalties, or none at all.

In March, the State Duma supported a bill allowing SMO veterans to cancel debts of up to 1 million RUB ($12,808) without court proceedings, so long as they can present proof of military participation.

At the national level, shows like Life Goes On attempt to portray veterans as successfully reentering society. Their hardships go away with the right retraining, the right mentor, the right job. But these stories are curated exceptions.

In reality, Russia is facing the fallout of its own war. Whatever the Kremlin claims, Russian society sees these veterans of an invasion as a threat, not as heroes.