KYIV, Apr 24 (AFP): Last month Pavlo Petrychenko, a junior sergeant in the Ukrainian army, issued a stark warning to President Volodymyr Zelensky about a dangerous vice sweeping the military.
A surge in online gambling among serving soldiers has seen many lose their entire salaries, he said, pushing them and their families into debt.
Some were even selling off army drones and thermal imaging cameras to feed addictions, compromising their own safety for a long-shot chance to strike it rich.
Exhausted by more than two years of war, campaigners say online gambling is rife in the Ukrainian armed forces, a coping mechanism and dopamine hit for fighters under constant fire and far from home, their families and loved ones.
"For many, gambling has become the only way to deal with the stress," Petrychenko said in a petition to Zelensky that called for a ban on soldiers gambling.
His appeal received 26,000 backers within a few days-enough to require a formal response from the president.
On April 20, Zelensky obliged, signing a decree banning military personnel from online gambling during wartime, restricting advertising, launching a nationwide campaign on the damage of gambling addiction and blocking all illegal sites.
The health ministry will also create a treatment strategy to combat severe gambling addiction.
Petrychenko, the soldier who had sounded the alarm, was killed in action in the eastern Donetsk region just five days before.
But his petition triggered a nationwide debate on one way the psychological pressure of war is hitting Ukraine's stretched forces.
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