Wounded Ukrainian veterans find healing on stage

Olha Semoshkina (top right), chief choreographer of the Veterans' Theatre group, talks to the actors before the premiere of an 18th‑century Ukrainian parody of Virgil's "Aeneid", amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 4, 2025. Fellow member and veterans' psychologist Yehor Babenko, 27, said the transformative trauma of serious injury often compels people to seek meaning in something new. He said it was critical for his fellow comrades to understand that life does not simply end after a serious injury. "Sometimes, you understand it’s the opposite - that it just starts getting going." REUTERS/Alina Smutko

KYIV, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Ukrainian soldier Andrii Onopriienko ran into ‌a challenge when he took up his new hobby of acting: having to learn his lines just by listening to them.

The 31-year-old ‌lost both eyes when two Russian anti-tank rounds ripped into his position in the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka in 2023.