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We are writing this epilogue during the days of some of the most horrific Russian attacks on Ukraine: In the holiday period, between December 29th, 2023, and January 2nd, 2024, the Russian president authorized the Russian military to send nearly 100 deadly guided precision missiles and drones, murdering and maiming civilians while destroying homes, schools, hospitals, museums. … Meanwhile, Russian president Putin’s celebratory speeches continue with the propaganda that the murder of Ukrainians is Russia’s “existential self-defense” against the threats and evil of the “West.” Militarized brutality toward Ukraine and Ukrainians continues since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, but the “special military operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and to “protect the Russian-speaking minorities” was shown as nothing but a vicious imperialist grab. Both Putin and his Russophilic mouthpieces, who are found (unfortunately) even in the psychoanalytic community, continue their rhetoric that murder, torture, destruction, ecocide, linguicide, and genocide committed against Ukrainians are justified for ideological reasons when they are packaged for whatever ideological commitment that suits those who rationalize violence (e.g., Ukraine is a colony, it does not exist outside of “Russia,” or Ukraine is a NATO wielding threat, or “peace” requires Ukrainians to submit to occupation).
Meanwhile, Ukrainian analysts, whose works were included in this contribution, continue their work on the frontlines, in hospitals with wounded, in their offices, online, and in their professional community. In this contribution, Velykodna analyzes the psychic responses to war, which highlight how both individual and social defenses, at times endemic in psychoanalytic types of thinking, can lead to difficulties with acknowledging and emotionally engaging with wars and those who are impacted by them. Pustovoyt discusses his psychoanalytic work with wounded Ukrainian defenders through direct empirical obser