Maksym Kolesnykov — a former artillery scout and prisoner of war — is now working with Vesta, a Ukrainian charitable foundation supporting military personnel, veterans, their families, the families of the fallen, and those missing in action.
“Before the war, I was a marketing director,” Maksym recalls. “It was a pleasure for me. I loved communicating, doing research. I planned to go on in that direction.” But for Maksym, as for so many other Ukrainians, everything changed with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. He became a soldier and was eventually captured (and, like all prisoners of war, cruelly mistreated) by the Russians.
The experience of combat and captivity changed him, as it has for many of the country’s 1.2 million veterans. Once the war ends and those currently serving are demobilized, that number will rise to 5-6 million, the government estimates.
So there’s a huge job to do in helping military men and women to reintegrate, and to meet their unique needs.
Maksym notes the gap in understanding between those who have been on the battlefield and those who try to live as if nothing is happening. “It’s difficult for me to communicate with people who consciously avoid the war. I don’t mind that they want to live their best life — but for that to be possible, the country has to survive. I can’t accept when people just ignore that.”
Maksym had always considered himself an active citizen. “But now I demand even more — from myself and from others.” That drive led him to Vesta, where he now works on veteran issues.
He is an internal project analyst, in particular analyzing the mobile psychological support groups project. These are support groups for veterans, where lawyers and psychologists provide services to those who have returned from the war — and their families as well
“I analyze the needs of veterans and their families, systematize requests, assess to what extent these needs can be met at the community level, and also study the level of satisfaction among the project’s beneficiaries and how much their psycho-emotional state improves with the availability of such services,” says Maksym.
Vesta is a Ukrainian partner of Amnesty International Ukraine, Amnesty International Denmark, and the Danish CISU fund in the Tribe project, which helps Ukrainian veterans to protect both their own rights and those of others.
Maksym has personal experience of this from his military service and history as a PoW. After the first Russian invasion of 2014, he was determined to contribute. “I was looking for ways to get involved. I hadn’t served in the army before, but eventually, I ended up on a reserve list and was later mobilized.”
That moment changed not only his life but the very structure of his identity. “I ended up in artillery reconnaissance, and gained a new focus—I wanted to do what I was doing well. I had a degree in radiophysics, so I had to recall that knowledge for artillery calculations. I had to dive into military strategy and learn fast”
After demobilizing in 2016, the war followed him in other ways. “The people I spoke with had changed. Some fell away, those who dodged the draft, people I knew had received the call and didn’t go,” he said. “There were disappointments, even with close friends who left the army under questionable circumstances. But I also gained new strong bonds, brotherhoods that still last.”
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Maksym didn’t hesitate. He was a part of the first-line reserve, and returned to service. He was captured by Russian forces in 2022.
His experience as a prisoner of war became a turning point, not only personally, but socially. “After I came back from captivity, I completely switched to Ukrainian,” he says. “I had tried to speak Ukrainian only in 2014–2015, but some of my environment was Russian-speaking”.
As a member of Vesta, he’s now involved in the Tribe project, with its human rights education providing tools and knowledge. Veterans learn how to communicate with the authorities and work with the media, and how to build a reputation and remain psychologically stable.
For Maksym, socially active veterans are a logical continuation of what they fought for. “After a war like ours, one of survival in the most literal sense, the sense of injustice becomes very sharp. When you’ve fought on the side of good against evil, it’s very hard to accept injustice or incompetence.”
That’s why veterans, he says, are particularly well-suited to human rights work. “There’s this hunger to make things better here, on this land. And it’s great that we have the chance to do that constructively, not by destroying or shooting, but through advocacy, law, dialogue. That kind of work benefits society far more than lashing out.”
Veterans bring something else to the table: credibility.
“There’s a public demand for moral authority. Veterans and military people have that. Society recognizes their contribution, so when a veteran speaks or acts constructively, people listen. If someone was willing to die for this country to survive, there’s a basic trust in their intentions. They’ve already proven that their words aren’t empty.”
And for the veterans themselves, the benefits are mutual.
“There’s a story you carry — something you feel but might not know how to express. Activism and advocacy give us not just the will but also the tools to act. Veterans bring energy and integrity, and when they gain knowledge and support, it becomes a force for real change.”
Now Maksym channels the same clarity and purpose he once applied to military calculations into defending rights and building a better society. From the battlefield to the courtroom of public opinion, he continues to serve — not with weapons, but with words and will.
And that, he believes, is a very important fight.
Lera Burlakova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She is a Ukrainian journalist and former soldier who served as an infantrywoman from 2014-2017 after joining up following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary ‘Life P.S., received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021. She lives in Kyiv and works as the Campaigns and Media Coordinator for the new Amnesty International Ukraine team.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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