IGP Carnegie Distinguished Fellow Jon Finer and Tech Entrepreneur Clara Kaluderovic Discuss Mental Health Crisis in Ukraine

More than three years out from the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian society is facing a mental health crisis sparked by the war. On March 11, the Institute of Global Politics (IGP) hosted a roundtable conversation between IGP Carnegie Distinguished Fellow Jon Finer, former US Principal Deputy National Security Advisor, and Clara Kaluderovic, technology entrepreneur and the CEO and cofounder of Mental Help Global. Finer and Kaluderovic discussed the latest updates in the conflict and talked about the need for more specific attention to mental health.

“We usually focus on decision makers and policymakers” to understand what is happening politically and militarily in Ukraine, said Finer, but the individual lives affected warrant greater focus.

Kaluderovic, back from a recent trip to Ukraine, pointed out that Russian attacks across the country had significantly increased even from October, during a previous trip she took to Kyiv. “You do see a lot more hesitation and weariness from a population already at war for three years,” she said. Confusion about unpredictable US policies toward Ukraine has also “been difficult for people to process on the ground,” she added.

The challenges Ukrainians face every day as a result of Russia’s ongoing war have left over half of the population in need of some sort of mental health assistance, according to Kaluderovic. That is why she launched Mental Help Global, alongside General (retired) David Petraeus and Mitzi Purdue, to develop an AI-powered large language model (LLM) that provides Ukrainian users tailored support for anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health challenges.

“We wanted to do something that would help Ukrainians now but would also serve as a support structure for when the post-war recovery begins,” Kaluderovic said. “We also needed something you can scale and take with you” because the continuing attacks force many Ukrainians to move around often.

Kaluderovic said Mental Health Global has been able to develop its AI chatbot so quickly by relying on other open source LLMs, but these models were primarily built out in English — which is why Mental Health Global had to build an LLM specifically for this linguistic context. "Models trained in local languages can outperform translation-based tools by a significant margin — often by 25% or more in certain tasks — especially in sensitive fields like law or mental health where accuracy and nuance are critical," she said.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation has been key in pushing innovation in Ukraine, according to Kaluderovic. “The Ministry started when the war began and has now greenlighted more than 1200 organizations across industries,” she said.