In brief: Ukrainian veteran Serhiy Hrachov, who was wounded several times, once feared becoming a burden to his family, now speaks enthusiastically about their future.
Serhiy Hrachov has already bought the wedding rings. They are waiting for the moment when he and the woman he divorced can marry again. Between their separation and that decision lie five battlefield injuries, more than 30 operations and a struggle to recover his sense of purpose. The Ukrainian veteran who once feared becoming a burden to his family now speaks enthusiastically about their future. “I love my family, my family loves me, and I’m doing something I really enjoy,” he tells me.
It is a remarkable place to have reached. Serhiy is one of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians facing the task of rebuilding their lives after military service. Many return from some of the war’s deadliest battles carrying physical and psychological wounds, trying to recover a sense of normality and find their place again.
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Ukraine’s government estimates that veterans and their families will number five to six million once the war is over. For many, the support they need will extend far beyond physical rehabilitation. It will mean overcoming isolation, feeling understood even by those closest to them, and finding a renewed sense of purpose in civilian life.
Listening to Serhiy, I am reminded that courage can be required long after a soldier’s last battle. Now 40, he was born in Pavlohrad, a mining town in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region. He attended the National Mining University, where he met his future wife. They married after graduating and have two children.
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Before the full-scale invasion, their relationship had broken down. Hrachov worked in Germany during 2021, returning to Ukraine in January 2022. Reports of Russian atrocities in Bucha and Irpin convinced him that he must fight. He imagined looking into his daughter’s eyes and explaining that he had been too frightened to defend her.
“I couldn’t see how I could do anything else.”
Twice, the army rejected him because he lacked military experience. On his third attempt, he was accepted. After basic training in July 2022, he joined the 53rd Separate Mechanised Brigade, named after Volodymyr Monomakh. He had been assured that further training would follow with his brigade. Instead, he says, he was in Bakhmut the next day.
Imagining war and experiencing it proved very different. “Everyone thought of themselves as heroes, as fearless,” he recalls. “But imagining it is one thing. Finding yourself right in the middle of it is another.”
His first injury came when shrapnel broke fingers on his hand. After a month of treatment he returned. Further mortar fragments struck his leg, then his side and arm. Some still remain in his body.
Each return became more frightening. He knew his luck could not hold indefinitely. After his third injury, he approached his commander and admitted that he could no longer cope.
The officer was surprised. Serhiy had proved himself and was regarded as fearless. He, however, challenges the comfortable idea that brave men feel no fear. Hrachov felt it keenly and continued to serve as his injuries were insufficient to secure his discharge.
He says it took about six months to accept that he might not survive. “When you understand that tomorrow might never come for you, and you come to terms with that, it becomes a little easier.” By then, he was commanding a unit. Responsibility for his men proved harder to bear than fear for himself.
He remembers the pain of his earlier smaller injuries more clearly than those hours with his limbs hanging by skin and tendons.
On the Avdiivka front, an explosion left him severely concussed. A young comrade sitting nearby was killed. Serhiy had selected the men accompanying him to that position. He knows someone else might have died had he chosen differently. That knowledge still haunts him.
On March 20, 2023, a tank round struck the wall behind Serhiy as he watched the perimeter from an abandoned farm. His right arm and leg were almost severed. It took two hours to reach the first stabilization point.
He thought he would die. Yet he remembers the pain of his earlier smaller injuries more clearly than those hours with his limbs hanging by skin and tendons. Adrenaline, he believes, carried him through.
Evacuated through Karlivka and Pokrovsk to intensive care in Dnipro, he faced 18 months of treatment and rehabilitation. Surgery in Germany gave him an artificial elbow joint.
When his former wife and children visited him in hospital, he did not know whether his arm and leg could be saved. He told her they were divorced and she owed him nothing. She and the children should live their own life. He did not want to become a burden.
Her answer was firm: he was being foolish, and she did not want to hear such talk again.
For the first six months of rehabilitation, Serhiy thought constantly about returning to his unit. He felt he had left something unfinished. Military life, for all its dangers, offered clarity: an order, a task, men who depended on one another. Outside it he faced uncertainty and misunderstanding.
After his discharge in August 2024 he withdrew. There was alcohol. He did not want to leave home or see anyone. “It feels as though your body has returned, but your soul has stayed there.”
He worried about his injuries, employment and the future. He questioned why he had survived when others had died.
Eventually, he began seeking help through veterans’ activities and retreats. An announcement from Dnipro’s veterans’ policy department introduced him to Future Reclaimed, a British-Ukrainian program addressing moral injury. Initially, sitting in a circle reminded him of a religious gatherings or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But over three days, he noticed that he and the other participants were beginning to feel better. He returned, then trained as a facilitator.
“Every time you give it a name, it becomes a little easier,” he says of discussing painful experiences. Veterans lead the sessions for fellow veterans, with a psychologist present should anyone need support. Nobody is compelled to speak.
Some have remained silent for years, fearing that their experiences will distress their families or change how loved ones see them. One participant told Serhiy that, for the first time in two years, he felt as though he was back among his own unit.
The connections continue afterwards. Participants remain in contact, and some have even started businesses together.
Serhiy now travels helping other veterans with Future Reclaimed across Ukraine delivering the program. His prescription for better veterans’ support is practical: start in hospital. “Someone should explain the assistance available to these veterans immediately and maintain contact, helping each wounded soldier find a way forward,” he says. Serhiy speaks from experience where he spent months lost and uncertain before discovering opportunities that already existed.
Asked what Britain could offer, he suggests funding, specialist treatment and rehabilitation, alongside visits that give veterans a chance to experience life beyond war.
His own recovery includes competitive rowing. He captains Dnipro’s veterans’ team, which recently won a Ukrainian competition in Odesa and, he says, finished second at a European championship in Greece last year. Finding money to attend competitions remains difficult. The team now pays its own way.
He has also begun a master’s degree in public administration.
None of this erases what happened to him or the comrades he remembers.
His family remains in western Ukraine, where the children attend school in person and enjoy their activities. His son plays guitar, his daughter plays volleyball. Serhiy is reluctant to disrupt the childhood they have recovered in safer areas of Ukraine. He visits whenever possible, and continues to plan a second wedding with the woman who is both his former and future wife.
People sometimes look at his injuries and express pity. He wishes they understood how he feels now. “I’m genuinely enjoying life more than I ever have,” he says. “I’ve developed a thirst for life.”
He speaks of rediscovering his family, reassessing his priorities and finding work that gives him satisfaction. None of this erases what happened to him or the comrades he remembers. It shows what can become possible with support, companionship and the opportunity to contribute.
Serhiy Hrachov volunteered to protect his family and country. Today, helping other veterans rebuild their lives, he continues that service. His plans for the future carry as much meaning and valor as the wounds he carries.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com. Follow him on X/Facebook @LordAshcroft.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster.
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