Alternative medicine in wartime Ukraine is not a luxury — it is survival. In a society where trauma arrives faster than state response, two women have created a healing space where soldiers, volunteers, and civilians find refuge not in pills, but in touch, breath, and quiet human presence. In a Kyiv studio and converted hotel rooms near the front, their work is changing how we understand care during war.
Yulia and Inna: Healers Without Borders
Yulia and Inna are massage therapists, yoga instructors, and homeopaths. They are also wartime volunteers.
Their space in Kyiv began as a yoga studio — a place for movement, breath, and quiet care. Before the invasion, they worked with vulnerable communities, including orphans. That instinct to help never stopped. It simply shifted.
Now, in the midst of war, the studio has become a sanctuary for soldiers and refugees. The treatments are free. The door stays open.
Soldiers come with tremors, exhaustion, and nerves shot by artillery. Refugees arrive with grief, insomnia, and a body that no longer feels like home.
“We’re not fixing people,” Yulia says. “We’re creating space for their bodies to remember who they are.”
There are yoga mats instead of stretchers. Candles instead of fluorescent lights. Herbal tinctures sit beside handwritten thank-you notes — some signed by soldiers, others by mothers who finally slept.
Trauma Has a Body
Many soldiers arrive carrying the weight of battle fatigue — tension locked into their shoulders, jaws, and spines. Civilians come with the psychological strain of life under constant threat: drone attacks, sleepless nights, air raid sirens.
Inna explains that healing often begins not through conversation, but through the body itself. Physical contact, breathwork, and sustained presence help release what’s been held for too long — restoring sensation, circulation, and calm.
“We don’t treat diagnoses,” she says. “We help the body reconnect — with breath, with weight, with itself.”
Through massage, yogic techniques, and quiet ritual, Yulia and Inna reintroduce stillness as medicine. There’s no formality, no clinical detachment — only deep listening through hands.
This isn’t therapy in the Western sense. It’s older than that.
It’s restoration — where silence is not absence, but repair.
“Tony Stark” and Vlad: Warriors in Recovery
Among the men who’ve passed through the treatment space is Oleksandr, known by his callsign “Tony Stark.” He serves in an artillery unit and has shown footage of himself operating heavy machine guns and engaging on the front line. Outside combat, he trains regularly, using sport to maintain a warrior mindset. He doesn’t consider himself fragile. He’s focused, grounded, and strong.
Vlad joined the army as infantry in 2022, shortly after the full-scale invasion. After what he described as “destroying a large number of enemies,” he decided to become a medic to balance what he called his karma. Recently, he experienced a heart attack following surgery and is currently recovering.
Both men approach their recovery with resilience. They aren’t here because they’re broken — they’re here because even the strongest soldiers need repair.
A Mobile Frontline of Care
Yulia doesn’t stay in Kyiv. She drives to the front. There, in half-functioning towns and converted hotel rooms, she sets up makeshift treatment spaces — bringing mats, oils, candles, blankets. Not much is needed, just enough to create warmth and quiet.
Soldiers come between missions, often still in uniform. Arriving with tension locked in their jaws. She treats whoever is there and in need — massage, touch therapy, stillness.
“We bring what the army cannot,” Yulia says. “Human touch. Permission to pause.”
These sessions aren’t luxury. They’re lifelines. For many soldiers, it’s the only physical care they’ll receive for months. No machines. No paperwork. Just breath, pressure, release.
And when the room quiets, the war fades — if only for a while.
Masculinity, Silence, and War
Many of the men who come through Yulia and Inna’s space have never experienced physical care that isn’t functional, violent, or transactional. For them, being touched in a calm and respectful way — without expectation — is unfamiliar.
This shift in experience often breaks through emotional walls. Some men begin to process memories they haven’t spoken about. Others sit quietly for several sessions before saying anything at all.
Yulia and Inna believe that nonverbal care can help restore a man’s sense of dignity — not just as a soldier, but as a human being. In an environment that usually rewards suppression and toughness, here, vulnerability becomes part of the healing.
The weight these men carry is immense. And in this space, they’re not asked to explain it — only to feel again.
Not a Spa, Not a Clinic — A Third Space
There’s no brand behind this effort. No official signage. No business model. What Yulia and Inna have built exists outside institutions — somewhere between medicine, ritual, and frontline volunteerism.
It’s not a clinic, yet healing happens. Nor is it a spa, yet bodies are cared for. It’s not a charity, yet the work runs on compassion.
In this third space, there is no pressure to recover quickly or justify pain. Strength is not measured by silence or performance. Recovery unfolds slowly, in a rhythm defined by safety, presence, and respect.
Here, war-worn minds and bodies remember they are still human.
Conclusion
War doesn’t just destroy bodies — it rewires them. It hardens breath, shortens sleep, numbs emotion. And yet, in small, quiet spaces across Ukraine, women like Yulia and Inna are helping to undo what violence leaves behind.
Their work is slow. Unseen. But essential.
They don’t talk about heroism or ask for recognition. But they keep showing up — with blankets, breath, and hands trained to listen. While the frontlines rage, they hold the interior lines.
Healing is not weakness. It’s survival.
And in Ukraine, survival is resistance.
Keep The Camera Rolling
Raw Exposure Magazine exists to tell the human truth of war — not in headlines but in moments like these.
If this story moved you, share it, support the work, or reach out to those doing the healing.
To help fund recovery and frontline care — from treatment rooms to drones — consider donating to the efforts supported by us
- Follow @davidxdavis for more frontline reporting from Ukraine
- Read more human stories at RAWXMAG.com
- Follow Yulia to see her frontline work @umaoasis
- See the studio in action @oasisyogastudio_kyiv
War may be fought with weapons —
but it’s won with people.
