Disability in Ukraine before the 2022 invasion

Russia

A new book, The Broken Years: Russia's Disabled War Veterans, 1904–1921, which shows:

"the question of disabled veterans became bound up in broader political and social debates in the early twentieth century and fostered health care and social welfare policy. The experience of these 1.14 million war veterans reconfigured notions of heroism, sacrifice and patriotism while the period of 1915-1919 was marked by extensive political activism by disabled veterans." (2022, Cambridge University Press)

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Ukraine

Impact of COVID-19 on People with Disabilities: Perspectives of Organisations of People with Disabilities. Describes inaccessibility of healthcare, increased social isolation, restricted mobility and deepening poverty. While some organizations of persons with disabilities reported new partnerships, many had funding reduced. (2022, Kiril Sharapov et al)

Survey of more than 1,500 over-60s: Older people on the edge of survival "Older people make up a third of all people in need of assistance in Ukraine, making this conflict the ‘oldest’ humanitarian crisis in the world. One in four people in Ukraine are over 60-years-old and Ukraine has the largest percentage of older people affected by conflict in a single country in the world." (2022)

Disability and Socialism in Eastern Europe. Recent Historiographical Trends in Scholarship. A good overview of how research shows the place of disabled people and their relationships with socialism:

"In state socialist countries, disabled persons and associations frequently articulated emancipatory claims and sought to prove their productivity and eagerness to participate in the workforce. However, these egalitarian aspirations had troublesome implications since integration into socialist societies was strictly conditional on their contribution to the labour force. Social security programmes were primarily formed as a reward system for work, not as a way to meet the needs of the disabled. While those recognised as partially disabled were to be integrated through work placement in regular or sheltered workplaces, this system ultimately had the opposite effect and created a segregated system of work." (2022, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

For more detailed ethnographic research on persons with disabilities, Sarah Phillips 2010 book is Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine. See a detailed review by Cassandra Hartblay. (2022)

Policy Recommendations to the Ukraine government. The document notes that as the government develops plans to implement its Strategy for Barrier-Free society:

"At the same time, many Ukrainians living with disabilities remain trapped in their homes, restricted in their access to transportation, health care, social services and public buildings. Ukraine continues to apply medical and charitable approaches to persons with disabilities, rather than the human rights-based approach of creating favourable conditions to the enjoyment of all human rights on an equal basis." (2021, UN)

Ukraine frontline: disabled and elderly people threatened after 7 years of conflict (2021, Fair Planet)

National Strategy for a Barrier-Free Environment in Ukraine presented "We set extremely ambitious goals". See also the government reporting on the first steps towards a barrier free environment in Oct 2021. (2021, Cabinet of Ministers)

Ukraine's inaccessible cities "Ukraine’s urban accessibility issues are part of the country’s Soviet inheritance." (2021, Atlantic Council)

Situation assessment of rehabilitation in Ukraine As of September 2020: "The rehabilitation sector in Ukraine is rapidly evolving and many examples of good practice are emerging." (2021, WHO)

Access to health-care services for older persons and persons with disabilities living in Eastern Ukraine along the "line of contact". "In the two oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk, where health indicators were among the lowest even before the conflict, the situation has grown worse, leaving those living in the area to face increased health expenditure, including transport costs and out-of-pocket payments for services that are supposed to be free." (2021, WHO)

Briefing Note: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on persons with disabilities. "The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated existing institutional, attitudinal and environmental barriers that persons with disabilities face in exercising their rights and accessing basic services." (2020, UN)

Advocacy Note on Assisting Displaced and Conflict-Affected Older People (link to pdf, 2020, Protection Cluster)

“We Live Like We Are Homeless” The Consequences of Conflict for Displaced People with Disabilities in Eastern Ukraine (2020, Human Rights Watch)

People with Limited Mobility Can’t Access Pensions Challenges those who live in nongovernment-controlled areas had to access their benefits. (2020, Human Rights Watch)

How People with Disabilities Live in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts Based on a survey in both government and nongovernment-controlled areas. (2019)

Disability in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: History, policy and everyday life. It includes a chapter with Sarah Phillips research in Ukraine, who gives the then-position of disabled people. At a very outside view, it seems that the presence on the political stage may have increased since she wrote:

"Interviews with persons with disabilities in Ukraine and a review of the available literature indicate that quality of life for most mobility disabled people has improved considerably since perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some improvements in infrastructure and life possibilities, however, are accompanied by a range of injustices that compel many people with disabilities in Ukraine to feel as if they live in a “parallel world” where their rights to full citizenship in the new Ukrainian state are circumscribed (Phillips 2002, 2011). This parallel world is constructed at the intersection of public discourse and institutional infrastructure. The “unknown population” of the disabled is made further invisible by a hegemonic discourse that refuses to acknowledge the presence of the disabled on the political stage." (2016)

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