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How Ukrainian soldiers are being taught to become mentally resilient
In Norway, Ukrainian soldiers receive training that helps protect them against psychological trauma. "You could call it a kind of stress vaccination.”
Since 2022, more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers have undergone trauma training in Norway.
In Trøndelag, Ukrainian combat medics have completed a programme that also included Operational Resilience Training (ORT).
“We simulate combat stress with experiences and situations that they may encounter in war, and we try to make them as realistic as possible. You could call it a kind of stress vaccination,” says Andreas Espetvedt Nordstrand.
He is head of military mental health at the Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Medical Services, and a researcher at NTNU’s Department of Psychology.
Developed in collaboration with the US Army
In collaboration with American researchers in the US Army, he has developed a training programme that helps the soldiers incorporate mental techniques they can use during demanding operations.
“We use different scenarios for different types of stress. It can be moral stress, cognitive stress, or emotional stress," Nordstrand explains.
While it seems realistic, it never becomes real.
"This means that you can go deep into it from a psychological standpoint, while at the same time feeling secure that the experience is only a simulation,” the researcher adds.
Increases confidence in the soldier’s own abilities
The training exposes the soldiers to different scenarios for the different types of stress.
“It can be finding a torture chamber, being subjected to a drone attack, an artillery strike, or a moral dilemma such as having to leave civilians in distress to fight,” says Nordstrand.
He has now conducted a study showing that the skills are put to use when the soldiers return to combat.
“What we see is that the soldiers gain increased confidence that they will master such situations in war. They gain increased confidence that they will be able to handle combat stress, both for themselves and for those around them," he says.
They are also able to handle human remains without being as deeply affected. This is practiced using realistic mannequins made to resemble corpses and fermented pig’s blood, he explains.
"It completely destroyed her"
Nordstrand tells the story of one course participant. She was one of the first to enter the Ukrainian village of Bucha after the Russian forces withdrew.
Hundreds of residents had been killed, including several children.
They also found alleged torture chambers where the victims, primarily the elderly and children, bore traces of brutal violence.
“She was a civilian nurse and had no experience in situations like this. It completely destroyed her, and she was plagued by trauma for a long time. She suffered from recurring memories, not being able to sleep, fear, and losing faith in humanity,” the researcher says.
The training functioned as trauma treatment
This kind of post-traumatic stress is caused by strong, overwhelming memories based on sensory experiences that a person is unable to control or dampen.
“She was very happy with the stress training she got from us. After the training, there were a lot of emotions, a lot of tears. She was able to get deeply in touch with what she had experienced," says Nordstrand.
He explains that although stress vaccination is not the same as trauma therapy, this is exactly what they aim for in trauma treatment.
The exercises rewrote the trauma
For this soldier, the training became a way to correct what she had experienced at the time, he explains.
“Here she is in a completely different situation. She is with other soldiers, has a task to be completed, while at the same time being brought back to what she experienced," the researcher says.
The simulated stress experience therefore became a rewriting of the original traumatic experience, in which she had felt completely helpless, he adds.
Soldiers become trench psychologists
In this way, the experience was reprocessed.
“In the days that followed, she experienced increased self-confidence and less anxiety about returning to service in Ukraine,” Nordstrand says.
The problem with going into these stressful situations without being mentally prepared is that the brain can become overwhelmed by strong impressions.
The soldiers have no mental framework to help them process what they experience.
During the ORT course, soldiers learn techniques such as attention control, breathing techniques, and helping each other.
How the training works
The training takes place in three stages: theory, practice, and then realistic stress exercises.
The progression is compared to learning to walk: first you crawl, then you can walk, and finally you can run.
The entire course is completed in three days, with two full days of theory and one day of practical exercises in the field.
Nordstrand calls it educating trench psychologists.
“Combat medics are often good at bandaging injuries and treating gunshot wounds, but they have no mental health training before they come here. We teach them techniques for managing stress, and how to help people around them,” he says.
What they learn
The soldiers learn to recognise symptoms of various stress reactions during the training.
“We teach them simple conversation techniques, techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy, about suicide risk, and simple steps to deal with soldiers with acute stress reactions," says Nordstrand.
They also learn to recognise signs of serious mental health problems, such as psychosis.
We teach them simple diagnostics and treatment for mental health problems that can arise in combat,” he says.
Will be introduced in the Norwegian Armed Forces
The ORT programme is now also being introduced into military training in Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian National Guard has adopted the programme for its 170,000 soldiers, where a day of ORT training is now mandatory for all soldiers. The programme has also been introduced into the Norwegian training of Ukrainian soldiers in Poland,” says Nordstrand.
The programme will also become part of the training in the Norwegian Armed Forces (link in Norwegian).
“We have received the assignment and the funds needed, and we are now in the start-up phase,” Nordstrand says.
Reference:
Nordstrand et al. "Crawl, walk, run": A graded approach to integrating mental skills for psychological resilience in training for large-scale combat operations, Military Psychology, 2026. DOI: 10.1080/08995605.2026.2612680
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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
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