From 13 to 20 January 2020, the President of EUROMIL, Emmanuel Jacob, visited Ukraine to discuss veteran affairs with different stakeholders.

Even if EUROMIL at the moment does not count a Ukrainian military association amongst its members, Ukraine remains one of its points of interest. In the summer of 2016, a delegation of EUROMIL visited Ukraine. Since this visit, EUROMIL maintains regular contacts with the Public Union of Ukrainian Association of Combatants and Volunteers ATO and other ones.

Via the UK Deputy Special Defence Advisor, Robin Seaword, EUROMIL was contacted by Paul Niland, the founder of Lifeline Ukraine, at the end of 2019. Lifeline Ukraine is a 24/7 suicide prevention and emotional first aid support line focusing on veterans. The operational team of Lifeline Ukraine is composed of about thirty responders being themselves veterans or married to a veteran, while other ones are, for instance, psychologists. However, one thing they all have in common is that they are l deeply committed to the goals of Lifeline Ukraine, which is basically “being there for Ukrainian veterans”.

The hotline 7333 is operational since October 2019. Meanwhile, the team was supported by two training sessions. A first training was delivered by ERAN, the national suicide prevention and emotional first aid hotline in Israel. In early December 2019, a specialist from the US, Dr. April Naturale (one of the world’s leading experts in suicide prevention through call centre operations) helped the team in their ongoing education.

Read more about it here.