Russia plans to open rehabilitation centers for soldiers who lost limbs in the war in Ukraine

Russian authorities plan to establish rehabilitation centers for veterans of the war against Ukraine who have lost limbs. Such facilities are to be established in each of the Russian Federation’s eight federal districts. No exact opening dates have been announced yet, but one center is already operating at the Russian State Social University (RSSU) in the Moscow region.

According to Anna Tsivilova, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, at the first center, former servicemen are being taught how to use prosthetics in everyday life. Since the facility opened, 650 veterans have undergone rehabilitation there.

One of the program participants said that former servicemen are being taught to walk with prosthetics and participate in adaptive sports. At the same time, he noted, not all participants have prosthetics that are ready for use or in good working order.

The man was drafted in 2022 and lost his right leg entirely on the front lines. Now he is forced to tie his broken prosthesis to his body with ropes so he can continue practicing walking.

“There are 28 people here—your brothers in arms—and all of them are missing a leg,” he noted.

According to the man, he doesn’t tell outsiders that he lost his limb in the war.

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” the program participant explained.

Earlier, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova reported that by 2028, the Russian government plans to establish 10 prosthetic and orthopedic rehabilitation centers under the Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA).

“Funding for these purposes has been allocated in the budget,” Golikova noted.

At the same time, according to data from the Russian Social Fund, as of early 2025, the number of people with disabilities in Russia exceeded 11.1 million. Prior to the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, this figure had been declining.

In March 2025, Denis Kovlen, chief specialist in medical rehabilitation at the Russian Ministry of Defense, stated that the country needed to open 25–30 new centers for prosthetics and rehabilitation for people who had lost limbs as a result of combat injuries.

According to his data, in 2025 the number of Russian servicemen requiring prosthetics had tripled compared to 2022. Kovlen did not specify the exact number of such individuals.

Earlier, The New York Times, citing a high-ranking Russian official familiar with the statistics, reported that approximately half of the Russian servicemen wounded in Ukraine had undergone limb amputations.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) estimated the number of wounded Russian soldiers as of the end of 2024 at 376,000.

If these estimates are compared, the number of Russian soldiers who returned from the front lines with amputations could potentially exceed 180,000. This is an approximate calculation based on published estimates, not confirmed statistics regarding the number of people with amputations.

Plans to create a network of rehabilitation centers were announced by the state fund “Defenders of the Fatherland.”

Earlier, the Solomyansk District State Administration commissioned the renovation of a building to serve as a rehabilitation center for 688.11 million hryvnias. The contract with Countryinvestbud Construction Industry LLC was signed on October 1 by the District State Administration’s Department of Social and Veterans’ Policy. The company had previously been linked to “barrier” schemes at Energoatom.