Ukraine looks at Israel’s experience: how the state should support families of fallen soldiers

In Ukraine, the issue is being raised again, which cannot be reduced only to payments, documents, and formal statuses. It concerns the families of fallen defenders — how the state informs them of the most terrible news, who remains by their side after the funeral, and why support cannot end with just compensation.

In the NV article from June 22, 2026, the honorary consul of the State of Israel in the Western region of Ukraine Oleg Vishnyakov writes (ukr.) that the Ukrainian system of support for families of fallen military personnel is developing but remains uneven: much depends on the region, specific people, local administration, unit, volunteers, and the family’s ability to navigate the bureaucratic path independently. As an example for Ukraine, he suggests closely studying the Israeli experience — the IDF system and the State of Israel, where working with families of fallen military personnel has long become not a one-time reaction but part of national responsibility.

For Israel, this topic is especially understandable. Almost every Israeli family is somehow connected with the army, reserve, war, terrorism, evacuation, funerals, waiting for news, and anxiety for loved ones. Therefore, the discussion about how Ukraine can adopt Israeli practices is not an abstract humanitarian discussion. It is a question of how the state behaves at the moment when a citizen has given their life for it.

NANews — Israel News considers this topic not only as a Ukrainian internal problem but also as an important example of Israeli-Ukrainian experience exchange. Usually, countries talk to each other about armaments, diplomacy, security, and technology. But there is another area where Israel can be especially important for Ukraine: the culture of state memory and supporting families of those who died in the war.

Not a call or a message: how the terrible news should come

One of the main focuses of the article is the order of official notification of a military death.

In Ukraine, families often learned about the death of a loved one from a phone call, messages in messengers, posts on social networks, or from comrades. Even if this happened without malicious intent, the consequences could be severe: a person received a blow without preparation, without a doctor, without a psychologist, without a state representative who can explain what happened and what will happen next.

The Israeli model is arranged differently. In the IDF, there is a separate system for notifying families of the deceased. According to data provided in the NV article, the notification unit has about 1800 people, was created back in 1948, and became especially active after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

It’s not just “someone came and informed.” In Israeli practice, prepared people come to the family: an officer, a doctor, a psychologist, sometimes a unit representative. The task of such a group is not only to utter the tragic phrase but also to support the person in the first minutes after the blow.

For Ukraine, this can become one of the key standards. The family of a fallen defender should not learn about the death of a son, husband, father, or brother from a random source. The state is obliged to come personally, with dignity and professionalism.

The family needs not an office, but an accompanying person

The second important idea is the institution of constant accompaniment.

After the death of a military person, the family begins not only grief but also a complex path: documents, payments, funerals, status, benefits, connection with the military unit, medical issues, psychological help, children, housing, education, work, memory of the deceased. In reality, this often turns into a separate struggle.

In Israel, the family does not have to search for all the doors themselves. They are assigned a coordinator who helps navigate the bureaucratic and social stages. This fundamentally changes the philosophy of support: the family does not run after the state, but the state comes to the family.

For Ukraine, this is especially important. The war has been ongoing since 2014, and after February 24, 2022, the number of families of fallen military personnel has become enormous. It cannot be expected that every mother, wife, or child can independently understand all the procedures, especially in the first months after the loss.

Ukraine needs not only a law on payments. It needs a person who is responsible for a specific family and does not disappear after the funeral.

Why money does not close the pain

Compensation is important. Payments are important. Benefits are important. But they do not replace human accompaniment.

If the family received money but was left alone with trauma, bureaucracy, children, debts, illnesses, and memory, the state has not fulfilled its task. This is the main lesson of the Israeli experience.

In Israel, support for families of fallen military personnel includes not only the financial part. It involves psychological help, social workers, medical support, help for children, educational programs, mutual support groups, accompaniment on anniversaries, and state participation in preserving memory. After October 7, 2023, this system became even more relevant and was expanded for new categories of affected families.

Ukraine will have to build not a temporary mechanism “for the period of war,” but a long-term system for decades. Because families of the fallen will live with this loss all their lives. Children will grow up without parents. Parents will age without sons and daughters. Wives and husbands will rebuild life after the loss.

State support must be as long as the memory itself.

Children of fallen defenders — a separate responsibility of the state

Children occupy a special place in this topic.

For a child, the death of a father or mother in war is not only a family tragedy. It is an event that affects education, health, psychological state, sense of security, future profession, and attitude towards the state.

If a child of a fallen military person has to prove their right to help, search for certificates, wait for officials’ responses, and depend on random decisions, the system is not working correctly. In this matter, Ukraine can use the Israeli approach: the rights of children of the fallen should be included automatically and accompany the child at different stages of life.

This is not charity. This is a duty.

It can involve psychological support, educational programs, scholarships, assistance with admission, medical accompaniment, summer programs, support at the beginning of a professional path. In Israel, such mechanisms are part of a broader culture of attitude towards families of the fallen. Ukraine can adapt this experience to its realities, the scale of the war, and budget possibilities.

But the main principle must remain unchanged: a child of a fallen defender should not become a petitioner.

Memory is not only a family matter

Another important part of the Israeli experience is state memory.

In Israel, there is the Izkor website — a digital memorial for fallen military personnel. It is not just a database. It is part of the national culture of memory, where a person’s name does not disappear after the funeral and official ceremonies. The NV article emphasizes that in Israel, the memory of the fallen is not left only to the family: the state takes on the obligation to preserve this memory publicly.

For Ukraine, this direction is also extremely important. Already now, in different cities, communities, schools, universities, and volunteer initiatives, memorial projects, memory books, digital pages, stands, ceremonies, films, archives are being created. But if such initiatives remain only on the shoulders of volunteers and relatives, the system will be fragmented.

Ukraine needs a unified state approach: the name of each fallen defender must be preserved with dignity, accuracy, and forever.

For Israel, this is understood at the level of national experience. On the Day of Remembrance for Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism, the country stops not symbolically, but truly. People stand during the siren, come to military cemeteries, know that behind the country’s security are specific names, families, and destinies.

Ukraine is also forming its culture of memory in the conditions of a great war. And here the Israeli experience can be not a template for copying, but a guideline: memory must be state, alive, and human.

Four tasks for Ukraine

If the proposals are reduced to practical steps, four key tasks emerge for Ukraine.

The first is to protect the very moment of notification of death. The family should learn about the death of a military person only through an official, prepared, and human channel. Not through Telegram, not through neighbors, not through rumors, not through a random call.

The second is to create a full-fledged institute of officers or coordinators of accompaniment. Each family should have a responsible representative of the system who knows their situation and helps not for one day, but as long as needed.

The third is to move from one-time payments to long-term support. Money is important, but the system must include psychology, medicine, social assistance, housing, education, rehabilitation, and support in everyday life.

The fourth is to make children of fallen military personnel a separate state priority. Their rights should work automatically, without humiliating bureaucracy and constant proving of the obvious.

NANews — Israel News believes that such topics show the depth of the connection between Israel and Ukraine. The Israeli experience is important not only in the field of security, army, or technology. It is important in a matter that lies deeper than any politics: how a country treats those who died defending it, and those who remained to live after them.

Why this is important for Israel and Ukraine

Ukraine is now going through an experience that Israel has known for decades: a prolonged war, constant threat, losses, wounded, mobilized families, children growing up in the shadow of war, and a society that has to learn to live with pain without turning it into indifference.

But it is here that space for true partnership emerges. Not only military and diplomatic, but also human.

Israel can share with Ukraine what has been developed at a high cost: how to talk to families of the fallen, how not to leave them alone with state offices, how to preserve memory, how to support children, how to build a system that works not on paper, but in real life.

Ukraine, in turn, is already creating its own experience — through volunteers, communities, military personnel, psychologists, local initiatives, and families who themselves become the voice of memory. But now this experience must be gathered into a strong state system.

Because victory is not only liberated territories and rebuilt cities. It is also the ability of a country to remember its fallen, protect their families, and not shift the pain onto those who have already paid the highest price.

The conclusion is simple and heavy at the same time: if a person died for the state, the state has no right to disappear from the life of their family.