"The care we provide to women must be just as effective and appropriate as the care we provide to men": how Superhumans Center supports women in Ukraine

The team of UN Women Ukraine and the United Nations Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) during a meeting with representative of Superhumans Center. Vynnyky, Lviv region, February 2026. Photo: WPHF / Valentyn Kuzhan.

On 19 August, Ukraine marked World Humanitarian Day for the fifth time since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. The day honours humanitarian workers who sustain and save lives, and those for whom that work continues.

The war in Ukraine has severe and lasting consequences for women and girls. It deprives them of health, safety and access to the help they need. According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, between 24 February 2022 and July 2026 at least 17,460 civilian women and 1,232 girls were injured in Russian attacks. At the same time, thousands of women care for relatives and loved ones wounded while defending their country.

It is these two groups of women that a project run by Superhumans Center is designed for, implemented with technical support from UN Women Ukraine and funding from the United Nations Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF).

Superhumans is a Ukrainian network of war trauma centres specialising in prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation and psychological support for people affected by the war in Ukraine.

The joint project covers several areas of work: prosthetics for civilian women who have sustained injuries; psychological support and therapeutic retreats for patients and wives of wounded veterans; and multidisciplinary rehabilitation.

We spoke with Valeriia Pechenyk, Grants Coordinator at Superhumans, and Yulia Aviam, a psychologist at the centre, about why this project matters.

Prosthetics for civilian women

Recovery from a war injury is not the same for everyone. Treatment protocols, prosthetic design and formats of psychological support were shaped for decades around the experience of military personnel – mostly men. But the context is changing.

"The number of strikes on Ukrainian cities has grown recently, and with it the number of civilians who have been wounded. And we understand that women increasingly need the same support as men when recovering from war injuries," says Valeriia Pechenyk.

Valeriia Pechenyk, Grants Coordinator at Superhumans Center. Vynnyky city, Lviv region, February 2026. Photo: WPHF / Valentyn Kuzhan.

The first area of the joint project is prosthetics for civilian women who lost limbs in Russian attacks. To date, 10 women have received functional prostheses – both with a mechanical knee joint and below-knee prostheses. The devices are manufactured in Ukraine from components made by leading global producers, while the part of the prosthesis that connects to the body is made individually for each patient. The centre provides servicing of the device for life.

"There are a number of details we pay attention to, so that the care we provide to women is just as effective, just as precise and appropriate as the care we provide to men," Valeriia Pechenyk explains.

In its work with women, the Superhumans team identified several needs that had not been accounted for in the standard service. A foot with adjustable heel height, allowing patients to wear heeled shoes; a cosmetic cover that gives the prosthesis the shape of a leg.

Valeriia Pechenyk and Tonni Ann Brodber, Head of the Secretariat of WPHF, during a visit to the prosthetics workshop at Superhumans Center. Vynnyky, Lviv region, February 2026. Photo: UN Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) / Valentyn Kuzhan.

Some procedures, including taking measurements and fitting the prosthesis, require physical contact, and at patients' request they are carried out by the centre's female specialists. Today Superhumans employs several female prosthetists – a profession that until recently was considered exclusively male.

"We want to break the stereotype that there are inherently male and inherently female professions. And we are already breaking it through our work," says Valeriia.

"Women focus on their husband's problems, completely forgetting their own"

The women few people talk about are those who provide support. Wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of wounded men.

"Women usually take on a great many caregiving responsibilities for the whole family during the war. They deserve no less attention than those who have been wounded, or any other vulnerable group," Valeriia Pechenyk stresses.

The second area of the joint project is psychological support and thematic retreats. Under the project, 135 women — patients, wives and partners of patients — received individual and group psychological counselling, and 20 joined multi-day psychological retreats.

Yulia Aviam, a psychologist at Superhumans, works with two groups of women: civilians who sustained physical injuries directly, and relatives of wounded veterans.

Yulia Aviam, psychologist at Superhumans Center. Vynnyky, Lviv region, February 2026. Photo: WPHF / Valentyn Kuzhan.

According to the psychologist, civilian women who sustained injuries had often lived for a long time on or near the front line.

"And here we are dealing with prolonged trauma, because they were in danger for a long time, they had heightened anxiety about the safety of their loved ones, and they often lived with unmet basic needs — a lack of food, sleep and warmth," says Yulia Aviam.

This trauma is sometimes compounded by a traumatic evacuation, and later by injury and the loss of a limb. According to her, the combination of these traumas can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, heightened anxiety and adjustment disorders. Yet such women rarely bring themselves to seek help.

"They are used to coping with their problems alone. And it is very difficult to break that stigma," the psychologist explains.

For relatives of wounded veterans, the reason for silence is usually different. According to Yulia, when a woman's husband is wounded, all the attention usually goes to him, while women's own psychological problems fade into the background. It is important to lead women gently into a conversation, so that they can open up in a safe environment and feel willing to speak about their own experiences, emotions and feelings.

Retreats within the project become exactly that kind of safe environment. According to Yulia Aviam, one of the main insights from them is that women often do not realise what psychological problems they have, because for months, and sometimes years, they have been focused on their husband's problems and on his physical and psychological rehabilitation.

"I can say with confidence that the project changes women's lives. They begin to feel their own worth and allow themselves to think about their feelings and needs," says the psychologist.

Comprehensive care in one place

The third area of the project is multidisciplinary rehabilitation. This is an approach recognised by the World Health Organization. It combines, among other things, physical rehabilitation, psychological support and occupational therapy. Under the project, 25 women received such care, including those who were fitted with prostheses.

All of this follows the one-stop-shop principle — several services provided at the same time and at a single centre. In a humanitarian context this is a matter not only of convenience but of access. Every additional journey between institutions means costs, risks and time that a woman caring for her family may not have. Valeriia Pechenyk stresses that a fragmented system "draws a person in and turns them into a kind of 'professional patient'".

"We try to provide several services at once, in order to reduce the time any person spends inside this system. And so that these elements of the service reinforce one another and give patients more strength to achieve the overall result," she says.

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The needs of Ukrainian women are growing, while funding for humanitarian response is shrinking. For women with disabilities acquired through the war in Ukraine, cuts in international support mean postponed prosthetic adjustments and interrupted courses of rehabilitation. For those caring for wounded relatives, it means the reduction or disappearance of services addressed specifically to them.

"What we do here is not really charity, but a major investment in human capital. Because many people in Ukraine have been wounded, but they have not stopped being human capital," says Valeriia Pechenyk.

According to her, without sustained funding Ukraine risks failing its post-war recovery, and the consequences would have to be dealt with far beyond its borders.

"Support from the international community is not charity for charity's sake. It is a deliberate, calculated investment. And I think Ukrainian society has already proved more than once that it deserves that trust and that investment," she concludes.     

The project "The Invisible Become Visible: support for civilian women affected by the war" is implemented by the Superhumans Center, funded by The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) with technical support of UN Women Ukraine. The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) mobilizes critical support for local and grassroots civil society organizations working on women, peace and security and humanitarian action. WPHF is a flexible and rapid financing mechanism supporting quality interventions designed to enhance the capacity of women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities.

This publication is produced with funding from the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), however, the views expressed and content included does not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.