By Sultan Musayev | 2025-09-30

In Russia this year, nearly seven out of ten military marriages have collapsed, a staggering toll that officials and veterans link to the invisible wounds of war.

At a Moscow Regional Duma meeting in March, Children's Rights Ombudsman Ksenia Mishonova said divorces are rising among veterans of the so-called "special military operation," Russia's official term for the war in Ukraine. She cited post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), concussions and legal issues as major factors.

"Families face a whole range of problems related to psychological state, the lack of resocialization of fighters who were formerly convicts and also legal problems concerning their status," she said, as quoted by Argumenty i Fakty.

A month later, at a State Duma session, veteran Yevgeny Rasskazov, who runs a free counseling project for service members and families, said Defense Ministry statistics show 68% of military marriages ended in divorce in 2024.

Rising divorce rates

Psychologists say post-traumatic stress disorder is a leading cause of divorce among veterans returning from the front.

Aygerim Ibragimova, a psychotherapist at the Almaty Center for Psychological Assistance, told Kontur that war changes soldiers permanently.

"They will never be the same again," she said, noting depression, anger, panic attacks and sleep disorders as common effects of prolonged combat.

Families bear the brunt of these struggles, and many collapse under the strain, B17.ru portal reported last year. Lyudmila Ivanchenko, a psychologist in Cherkessk, wrote that wives often feel joy when their husbands first return, "but then the frustration gradually begins to accumulate."

Ivanchenko said she counsels wives and children of mobilized service members, many of whom feel isolated. She noted that only other soldiers' wives can understand their struggles, so they often connect in private chats. Even relatives fail to grasp their problems.

The B17.ru portal published anonymous accounts from soldiers' wives. One woman said her husband of 12 years "has become different. Different reactions, different perceptions... He can't stop. He continues to live there."

Another said, "I don't feel like myself today. I'm living either in the past or in the future. But I don't exist in the present."

A third added, "I think we all have PTSD now. We are all traumatized, even those who are healthy and did not personally fight."

Marina, who recently moved from Orenburg to Almaty in Kazakhstan, divorced her husband after he returned from the war. She told Kontur their life could be divided into before and after the "special military operation."

Before deployment, he worked as a driver, provided for the family and doted on their two daughters. But with money tight, he signed a contract with the Defense Ministry.

He came home a year later, wounded. The reunion was brief. He began drinking, grew hot-tempered and violent, and blamed others for his problems.

"This is no longer the man I married. This is a complete stranger," Marina said. "Sometimes I think it would be better if he had not come back..."

A fractured society

Many Russian psychologists advise wives of returning soldiers to be patient. Ivanchenko wrote that relationships must be rebuilt "all over again." Women who want to save their marriages, she said, should "adapt and learn not to accuse."

She also cautioned against behaviors that may trigger aggression in veterans with PTSD.

"Never approach from behind. A veteran perceives this as an attack," she wrote. Raising one's voice can be seen as a threat and provoke an instinctive, violent response, she added, noting that most veterans need at least a year to adjust to civilian life.

Soldiers returning from Ukraine often feel resentment when they see Russians living normally while fighting and deaths continue at the front, experts said. That anger is frequently directed at family members.

The strain shows in soaring divorce rates, deepening Russia's demographic crisis. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center said that in 2024 the country recorded eight divorces for every 10 marriages, the third-highest rate in the world.

Ibragimova called the trend a dangerous societal symptom.

"The state is losing its society," she said. "The regime is sending its citizens to certain death, and those who survive cannot return to civilian life."