Psychedelic Drugs: New PTSD Treatment for Ukraine’s Military Vets

In the winter of 2023, in eastern Ukraine, highly experienced combat medic Ihor Kholodylo was loading injured Ukrainian soldiers into his medical evacuation van when it was hit by a shell from a Russian tank. The massive explosion threw Kholodylo some five meters through the air and nearly killed him.

Kholodylo, a psychologist in civilian life, sustained traumatic brain injury, concussion, leg wounds, and shockwave impacts on his eyes, spine and cardio-vascular system. The latter required major surgery to regulate a wildly arrhythmic heart.

As he was shuttled from one medical facility to the next, Kholodylo and his treating team noticed a phenomenon: he had lost his ability to speak and was left with only an intense stutter. He could only point at objects and write notes in order to communicate.

Even as his treatment progressed and his physical injuries healed, the debilitating stutter remained. His treating team decided that the phenomenon was a psychological one: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Potentially, Kholodylo’s PTSD stemmed from the incident in which Kholodylo was hurt, but it was probably also related to the dozens of horrific scenes he had borne witness to while practicing tactical first aid as a combat medic in the field, including after Russia’s occupation in Donbas.

In a Kyiv café, Kholodylo, who is now a medical officer and psychologist for Ukraine’s team to the upcoming Invictus Games for military veterans, recounts his injuries and recovery to Kyiv Post.

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Ihor Kholodylo

“I’m a psychologist so I well understood what the condition and the diagnosis of PTSD entail. And I knew that many of the conventional treatment options for PTSD are all largely talk-therapy and long-term,” Kholodylo says. “Given the stutter, I knew I needed something different and more direct, so I began to do my own research.”

What Kholodylo came upon were Ukraine-based trials of using the psychedelic drug, ketamine, for PTSD and other mental health issues.

“The concept made almost instant sense to me. Critical to recovering from PTSD is uncovering the impactful traumas which are sometimes blocked by our flight-or-fight reflex,” he says. “I could see how a psychedelic drug might help access the unconscious that we are not normally able to. So, I decided to try ketamine.”

Over the course of four medically supervised sessions at the Expio Clinic in Kyiv, Kholodylo was dosed with ketamine. He had two key experiences. The first was a series of vivid and florid experiences that traversed his mindscape, especially the masked traumas he had experienced as a child and on Ukraine’s frontlines. The second, as he “came out” of each successive dosage, was an eventually full resolution of his stuttering.

The emotional and practical relief for Kholodylo, his wife and his friends were absolute. It enabled him to travel to Japan for further (very successful) treatment of his physical injuries. While speaking with Kyiv Post, he presents as articulate and confident, a picture of physical health and strength, and considerably younger than his 58 years. Involved with veterans’ affairs since 2015, Kholodylo’s new personal mission is to deliver the benefits of ketamine treatment to more military personnel and veterans.

“We need to see this treatment made accessible and ‘normal’ for others. That means, first, destigmatizing ketamine, which after all is naturally occurring, and second, objectively demonstrating its benefits to the medical department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine through a control group trial,” Kholodylo says.

He envisages the use of ketamine not only for veterans with PTSD after battle, but possibly as a debriefing method – and “PTSD prophylactic” – for active-duty soldiers between combat assignments.

In the overall Ukrainian population, a recent research study involving a random representative sample of more than 2,000 people found that one out of five Ukrainians had symptoms consistent with PTSD or Complex PTSD.

In addition to Kholodylo’s “lived experience,” there are others who share the vision of greater use of ketamine as a psychological intervention. They would take heart from positive results in control group trials of ketamine as potential curative for PTSD, as well as passage by the US Congress of legislation that provides funding for trials of psychedelic-assisted therapy for military personnel with PTSD and other conditions.

Among those stakeholders is Heal Ukraine Trauma (HUT), an international NGO, whose US-based Executive Director is Elise Wilson.

Recently, HUT has trained eight Ukrainian psychologists and psychiatrists to conduct ketamine-assisted therapy (KAP) in a group setting. The training included online, experiential and supervised components. There is now the capacity to conduct the therapy for up to 372 Ukrainian veterans – in groups of eight – annually.

“The group therapy model not only allows for more individuals to be treated, compared to traditional one-on-one therapy, but also fosters shared experiences and community among veterans, creating a supportive network that extends beyond the therapy sessions,” Wilson said.

The goal is to train 64 more Ukrainian practitioners in 2025 and to ultimately have the capacity to provide KAP to up to 9,600 veterans per year.

“Ukraine offers a unique context for ketamine treatment research and an opportunity to study how ketamine can be used in large-scale PTS treatment,” Wilson said.

In addition to building capacity, a key direction for the advocates of ketamine is de-stigmatization of what is seen by some as a mind-bending party drug from the hippie era.

“Overcoming stigma is critical,” Wilson said. “We need to change the perception of psychedelics by highlighting the evidence-based benefits of ketamine for PTS.”

Adding to the stigma is the recent death of Hollywood actor Matthew Perry, which the local coroner in part put down to his self-medication with and overdose from ketamine.

Kholodylo puts it simply by noting that basically all conventional psychiatric medications, including widely used anti-depressants, have a greater chemical impact than ketamine on the human brain. “And, that’s not to mention the primary self-medication of many PTS sufferers – alcohol,” he said.

While optimistic about KAP’s future, Wilson also sounded a note of caution and realism.

“It’s important to manage expectations. HUT does not believe or promote that ketamine is a ‘silver bullet,’” Wilson said. “Ketamine can be a powerful tool, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution and it should not be used for everyone. It is most effective when integrated into a broader therapeutic framework that includes psychotherapy, long-term support, and comprehensive care.”

So, how and why does ketamine seem to work? The drug was originally developed as an anesthetic and has long been used for pain relief among burn victims. In this application, it was observed to have positive impacts on people’s mental health symptoms.

According to the journal Psychedelic Vantage, “unlike traditional antidepressants, which can take weeks to take effect, ketamine can produce noticeable results within hours,” including less anxiety, better mood, relief from suicidal thoughts, and improved emotional processing.

At the coalface of KAP, is Dr. Vladislav Matrenitsky, a psychotherapist and psycho-oncologist, who is the founder and director of the Expio Clinic in northern Kyiv, where Kyiv Post visited. Perhaps fittingly, it’s a modern, light and welcoming facility on the top floor of a darkened Soviet-era, prison-like medical building.

Some 300 clients have been treated with KAP at Expio since its establishment in 2018. The percentage of military personnel and veterans has grown since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine commenced in February 2022.

Over four to five weeks, the usual treatment regime consists of benchmarking testing and then three therapeutic sessions per week – two of them based on a 40-minute-long ketamine infusion. During the sessions, a psychotherapist encourages the patient to discuss traumatic events that may be contributing to their depression, PTSD or other mental health issues. The presence of ketamine helps the patient to access, disclose and process trauma – sometimes even from the subconscious mind – without the risk of re-traumatization.

The treatment is usually prescribed for clients who are chronically unwell and for whom conventional treatment – such as talk therapy combined with standard anti-depressants – has proved unsuccessful.

Dr. Matrenitsky tells Kyiv Post that, compared to their benchmark test, some 70 percent of patients report improvement in their psychological situation. Among these, Dr. Matrenitsky says, “there is a 50 percent greater improvement in symptomology than with conventional therapy.”

Dr. Vladislav Matrenitsky, founder and director of the Expio Clinic

In terms of why ketamine works, Dr. Matrenitsky grows excited.

“It’s unlike many other medications for mental health in that we actually know why it works in terms of brain chemistry and physiology,” he says. “It has the effect of restoring neural functioning, and thereby allows the patient to better process their traumas and emotions.”

According to Psychedelic Vantage, ketamine acts on “the brain’s glutamate system, which plays a crucial role in neural communication and plasticity. By modifying signaling pathways, ketamine can help reset abnormal neural activity associated with PTSD.”

To overcome stigmas about psychedelics and to inform a possible Ministry of Health protocol for KAP in future – subject to fundraising – Matrenitsky is in the process of establishing a control group trial with up to 40 veterans. He hopes such a trial will validate the results he has been achieving and more formally open the door for more veterans with PTSD to seek help using ketamine.

Oleh Orlov, Chair of the Ukrainian Psychedelic Research Association, recently told the media he believes that “psychedelic-assisted therapy [is] a beacon of hope for a nation grappling with the scars of war.”

“This innovative approach to mental health is not just about healing,” says Orlov. “For Ukraine, where the collective psyche bears the heavy burden of war and related traumas, this represents not just a medical advancement, but a crucial step towards national recovery and emotional resilience.”