Zhenya Galich explained why he was discharged from the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Zhenya Galich, a soldier and frontman of the band O.Torvald, explained the reason he was discharged from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The musician also mentioned the “invisible injuries” he sustained during the war.
Zhenya Galich admitted that the reason for his discharge from service was “invisible injuries,” which had kept him in the hospital. “There are people with amputations, and there are people with invisible injuries that nobody ever talks about… These are horrific cases where people with invisible injuries don’t feel the consequences right away. Because you keep fighting on adrenaline, but after two or three months, a person just starts to go crazy; they begin to develop schizophrenia. I was in the hospital with people like that,” he said.
According to the musician, these are mental health issues. Galich noted that such changes aren’t immediately noticeable but have serious consequences. “I know guys who are currently in the psychiatric ward… the likelihood that they’ll return to this world is very low, because it’s very difficult to treat psychological trauma,” the artist noted.
Zhenya Galich has a number of diagnoses that have currently exempted him from military service. These include clinical depression, adjustment disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was diagnosed with these conditions after his time in Bakhmut.
“I’m basically an ambassador for depression, an ambassador for psychiatry—you can run experiments on me… One of my main diagnoses is clinical depression, PTSD, and adjustment disorder. This was after Bakhmut in 2023–2024. These are very strange states you find yourself in—ones you hadn’t experienced for 38 years, and then at 39 you wake up and don’t know where you are. Your blood pressure drops so sharply, and you’re shaking. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on,” the musician said.
According to Zhenya Galich, these diagnoses have various consequences. He experienced memory loss and severe headaches that even strong medications couldn’t relieve. “Then various depressive mental states set in. In psychotherapy, this is called psychosis. When you go into a psychotic episode and can’t control anything, your body won’t listen to you. I went to see a psychotherapist. At first, they immediately referred me to a psychiatrist, saying that none of this could be fixed without medication,” Galich said.
Eventually, the musician was diagnosed with second-degree post-traumatic glaucoma. “You think it’s all over. So you stop taking your medication, go back to work, and keep working—but then the next shock wave causes you to lose consciousness, and you don’t understand what’s happening to you,” the musician recalled. This type of glaucoma tends to worsen, as does the brain injury. Memory lapses set in—it gets to the point where you might be driving, stop, and ask yourself, ‘Where am I going?’ That’s the story,” the singer shared.
