INFLUENCE OF RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN MILITARY (COMbat) ACTIONS ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE OF CITIZENS

Abstract

Currently, there are more than two dozen protracted armed conflicts in the world in an active state. Military operations are an integral part of almost all wars and military conflicts. They can be carried out by various subjects of confrontation both in the course of wars and military conflicts, and as an independent type of military operations. One example of a prolonged armed conflict is the conflict in Ukraine. Participation in hostilities, including in local conflicts, often associated with the activities of radical organizations, remains an acute problem for mankind. Shelling, bombing, hostage-taking, forcible detention associated with a direct threat to the life and well-being of people are among the most significant psycho-traumatic factors of modern life. It is clear that in an extreme situation, each person can experience fear, anxiety, lack of a sense of security, nervousness, which will lead to an increase in the number of mental disorders and the emergence of protective, compensatory mechanisms. The military theorist and empirical psychologist K. Clausewitz repeatedly emphasized that the main element of war is danger (Clausewitz, 2002). Indeed, fear in combat is one of the most powerful emotions. “A person becomes dumb and in this stupefaction already ceases to control himself, cannot strain his attention to what is needed - he surrenders to the power of fear (Krasnov, 1998). In extreme situations that expose a person to stressful conditions, a public self-consciousness is formed, which begins to determine the individual feelings and behavior of people. The complex of experienced events creates the so-called single psychological space. The escalating social situation, namely terrorist attacks, as well as a number of military events, contributes to maintaining the relevance of the further development and improvement of psychology in the field of military activity in accordance with the characteristics and needs of the present time. People, seeing the processes taking place in other countries, do not understand why the past referendum, to which any representatives of the world community have the right, led to such horrific results. As a rule, such wars are preceded by a serious preparation of the mass consciousness. People who find themselves in a situation of military conflict are subjected to massive external influence, which leads to a change in the psycho-emotional state of each person in this situation.