All-Ukrainian Veterans’ Forum in Poltava: What Was Discussed and What Problems Exist in the Communities

In Poltava, participants of the All-Ukrainian Veterans’ Forum exchanged experience in supporting former military personnel in the communities. On 5 and 6 November they worked out joint solutions for implementing veterans’ policy at the local level.

This was reported on the air of Ukrainian Radio “Poltava” by Olena Marakhovska, Deputy Director of the municipal institution “Poltava Veterans’ Centre”.

The forum was organised to bring together representatives of veterans’ communities, veteran support specialists and local self-government in order to identify the problems that exist in the communities. Participants analysed veterans’ support programmes and determined what possibilities local authorities have.

“On the first day of the forum (and these were 85 of our colleagues from Lviv, the Sumy, Volyn, Khmelnytskyi and Kirovohrad regions, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv) we talked about how far their needs are taken into account in the implementation of veterans’ policy. On the other hand, they told us what they themselves are doing to make it possible to meet those needs. Veteran status alone is not enough to take up a post and carry out one’s duties. To do that, veterans need to be trained and given the chance to do internships in order to understand how a particular institution works and what needs to be done for the community.”

According to Kateryna Yamshchykova, Secretary of the Poltava City Council, 111 veterans currently work in local self-government bodies. Veteran Oleh Kobylynskyi, who is Director of the Department for Veterans’ Policy of the Lutsk City Council, shared his experience.

“We talked about making local veterans’ support programmes focus on the needs that the veterans themselves voice.”

Forum participants carried out the following practical task: they wrote on cards the main problems in implementing veterans’ policy that exist in their communities, and which examples are successful and work. Based on the results of processing these cards, a practical guide will be created that all forum participants will receive, and these findings will become the basis for amending veterans’ support programmes for the coming years. The guide will also include participants’ contacts so that they can stay in touch in the future.

“On the second day of the forum there was a discussion about the work of veteran support specialists… We discussed how their work differs, whether it needs to be improved, at what stage the work of a support specialist in a medical institution ends and when a community specialist should step in. We focused on the training of support specialists and on raising their qualifications, which should take place once every three years. This possibility has existed since 1 July 2026. It concerns the official registers of certified institutions that train specialists. Such institutions exist in our Poltava city community as well.”

Listen to more on the air of Ukrainian Radio “Poltava” by following the link.

Source: Suspilne Poltava (suspilne.media), https://suspilne.media/poltava/1446837-vseukrainskij-veteranskij-forum-u-poltavi-pro-so-govorili-i-aki-problemi-u-gromadah/