The hairstyles that help heal traumatized Ukrainian soldiers

Ihor Shyshko closed his eyes as the electric razor buzzed through his graying hair, a sound that until recently was synonymous with punishing blows from Russian prison guards.

The 41-year-old Ukrainian soldier was captured by Russian forces in May 2022 – three months after Russia invaded Ukraine – and only released two years later as part of a prisoner swap.

In captivity, Shyshko and his fifteen Ukrainian cellmates were given just ten minutes to shave their heads twice a month.

“And if we didn’t succeed within that time, we were beaten and tortured,” he told AFP.

Some 3,672 captured Ukrainian soldiers have been released from Russian detention and many, like Shyshko, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In March this year, the United Nations described the torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-run facilities as “widespread and systematic.”

But in the barber’s chair, Shyshko begins to feel normal again, momentarily forgetting the abuse he suffered in detention.

He owes the postponement to a weekly beauty salon organized at the Lisova Poliana Mental Health Center, where traumatized soldiers recover from the war and where Shyshko was recovering over the summer.

The former Soviet-era spa in Kiev has now become a psychiatric clinic for civilians and soldiers and has a capacity for around 100 patients – a drop in the ocean considering the scale of the problem.

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The World Health Organization estimates that about 9.6 million Ukrainians suffer from psychological trauma – a quarter of the population.

– Turned gray –

Hairdresser Yulia Puzanska has lost count of the number of heads she has shaved of people who are still suffering from the violence they witnessed or were exposed to.

The soldiers don’t just come for the haircut, Puzanska said, they feel normal again.

“It’s a small step that brings them closer to their old lives,” says the 33-year-old volunteer.

“Many of them don’t talk anymore or don’t want to talk,” she said of newly arrived patients.

“They are afraid of this world,” she added.

In captivity, Shyshko lost 100 pounds and his hearing, while his hair became more salt than pepper, he said.

“I have become grayer, both inside and out,” he told AFP, “both psychologically and physically.”

Prison guards taunted the men with Kremlin propaganda, promises to annex Poland or threats that France would one day become a Russian colony.

If Shyshko contradicted them, he was beaten or humiliated by being forced to undress.

“That hairstyle suits the shape of your head,” Puzanska said, trying to lighten the mood.

The arrangements have given Shyshko, captured in the eastern Kharkiv region, a chance to get used to physical contact again and the feeling of Puzanska’s hands on his head and neck.

He said he had to relearn even the most basic routines of daily life, such as using a phone charger.

“I’m learning to talk,” he said.

– ‘I have to survive’ –

As the line of patients waiting for Puzanska grew, conversations between the men — some with unkempt beards and scars — grew livelier to the blare of upbeat music from tinny speakers.

“In the trench we are animals. Here we become men again,” one of the soldiers told AFP.

“They tell us about their lives because they have no one to tell,” Puzanska said, recounting some of the “terrible” stories she was told.

As payment, the soldiers, reluctant after their makeover, offer the hairdressers coffee or cake from the canteen.

Puzanska said the sacrifices took the place of words that the struggling soldiers still couldn’t find.

“For those who went hungry at the front, food is of great value,” she said.

Most of the soldiers AFP met while getting their hair cut will be deployed to combat after several weeks of treatment at the center.

Although Puzanska considers herself a psychologist of sorts, she has come to understand her own limitations.

She remembered asking a blank-faced 21-year-old soldier what he planned to do when the war was over.

“I have to survive,” she remembered the soldier’s response.