Ukraine Armed Forces Send Families Of Soldiers On Vacation To Improve 'Psycho-Emotional State'

The Ukrainian Navy helped send the families of its personnel on a weeks-long vacation in Romania "to improve their psycho-emotional state," the military branch said in a statement.

About 66 family members of Ukrainian naval personnel went on a three-week vacation to the region of Transylvania under the "Mother + Child" program, which was supported by the Ukrainian Navy, the Romanian city of Brasov and Romania's Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"This is a great opportunity for mothers and children to relax while staying in a boarding house, in quiet conditions," Alla Bochevar, the executive director of the charity fund, was quoted as saying in a statement posted by the Navy on Telegram.

"[All of this] is very important at the moment, to improve their psycho-emotional state, to see something new. I am sure that it will be useful," she added.

Around 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the first 100 days of Russia's invasion, Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, revealed in early June.

Between 100 and 200 Ukrainian troops were dying on the front line every day, Mykhaylo Podolyak, another presidential aide, said later that month.

Ukrainian forces have managed to hold off a full-scale Russian invasion of their country, but they continue to be outgunned and outmanned by their enemy.

Russian artillery outnumbered Ukraine's 20 to one, and Russian forces also had 40 times the amount of ammunition compared to their Ukrainian counterparts, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence officials.

"The Russians have so much ammunition, they can afford to shell us continuously, and we do not have enough ammunition to suppress their fire. That was how they eliminated our units," Oleg, a 21-year-old Ukrainian infantry platoon commander, said in an interview with NPR.

Ukraine has repeatedly requested heavy artillery from the U.S. and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

While the U.S. and other countries have sent military aid to Ukraine, including heavy artillery systems, Zelensky said that it will take more to win against Russia.

"We need to break the Russian artillery advantage... We need much more modern systems, modern artillery," the Ukrainian head of state said at a NATO summit in Spain in late June.

Despite the challenges they face, Ukraine's Armed Forces continue to be effective, the U.S. Department of Defense said.

An unnamed senior official of the department rated Ukraine's Armed Forces a 12 out of 10 "just based on how impressive they've been to us in so many different ways," according to a statement released last week.

"They have found ways to do things that we might not have thought were possible," the official said.