Mental and Physical Health Challenges of Ukrainians Under Hybrid Warfare

Abstract: The ongoing hybrid warfare against Ukraine has generated profound and sustained challenges to the mental and physical health of the civilian population. Unlike conventional armed conflict, hybrid warfare combines military violence with information terror, psychological operations, infrastructure destruction, and economic destabilization, resulting in chronic and diffuse stress exposure rather than discrete traumatic events. This article examines the psychosomatic effects of prolonged hybrid warfare on Ukrainians and analyzes individual, collective, and systemic coping strategies that facilitate psychological adaptation under conditions of persistent uncertainty and threat. Drawing on contemporary psychosomatic theory, psychoneuroimmunology, and stress-response models, the study conceptualizes hybrid warfare as a chronic psychosocial stressor that disrupts autonomic regulation, increases allostatic load, and contributes to a wide spectrum of psychosomatic manifestations. These include cardiovascular symptoms, gastrointestinal disorders, chronic pain, sleep disturbances, anxiety, depressive symptomatology, and war-related fatigue syndrome. Particular attention is given to vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons, women, military personnel, and volunteers, whose exposure to cumulative stressors heightens the risk of both mental and physical health deterioration. Methodologically, the article adopts an interdisciplinary qualitative-theoretical approach, integrating narrative review of empirical psychological research, clinical observations, and expert perspectives from psychology and psychosomatics. The analysis highlights adaptive coping strategies such as meaning-making, social support, resilience-building practices, and post-traumatic growth, while also identifying maladaptive patterns associated with information overload, avoidance, and somatization. The paper further emphasizes the importance of interprofessional mental health care models and preventive psychological hygiene initiatives, including media literacy and psychoeducation, as critical components of societal resilience. The findings underscore that hybrid warfare constitutes not only a political or military phenomenon but also a psychosomatic reality with long-term implications for population health. Effective responses therefore require integrated, human-centered mental health strategies that address both psychological and bodily dimensions of war-related stress.