Management model for the development of adaptive sports and rehabilitation infrastructure for veterans in Ukrainian communities
Abstract
The article substantiates a community-based model for the development of adaptive sports and rehabilitation infrastructure for veterans as a public management methodology applicable under wartime and post-war recovery conditions in Ukraine. A systemic gap is identified between high-technology clinical rehabilitation provided by specialised centres (Superhumans, Unbroken) and the individual-support programme «Veteran’s Sport» with a UAH 1,500 quarterly allowance via the Diia card: at the level of communities where veterans live, there is no permanent adaptive sports and rehabilitation contour that would ensure continuity of recovery after discharge from a clinic. The aggravation of this gap in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine – where the concentration of veterans is greatest and sports infrastructure has been damaged most heavily (955 damaged sports facilities as of January 2026, losses exceeding USD 374 million) – establishes constraints not captured by the logic of rear-area cases. The proposed methodology unfolds in three dimensions: a veteran’s route within the community contour with a minimally sufficient digital toolkit; a war-risk-adjusted matrix for the distribution of responsibilities among six funding sources (state and local budgets, the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs through the Ukrainian Veterans’ Fund, the Diia card, international donors, and private charitable foundations); and an illustration based on four regional configurations (Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Odesa, and the Kharkiv – Mykolaiv border zone). The methodological contribution lies in bridging the existing gap between clinical rehabilitation and community-based adaptive sports through real institutional and financial elements, without presupposing reforms «from scratch»
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References
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