Cardiovascular diseases in Ukraine: why mortality in the country remains one of the highest in the world

April 7 marks World Health Day, focusing on the most important issues in medicine. For Ukraine, they are of particular importance due to the constant burden on the healthcare system, the consequences of the war, the need for rehabilitation, psychological assistance, restoration of medical infrastructure and support for people with chronic diseases. At the same time, it is now especially noticeable that, along with military challenges, the country is living with a long-standing and large-scale problem: mortality from cardiovascular diseases in Ukraine remains one of the highest in the world.

Cardiovascular diseases in Ukraine

In Ukraine, mortality from cardiovascular diseases is one of the highest in the world. According to estimates by the Ministry of Health and WHO, about 130,000 cases of stroke are recorded in Ukraine every year, most of which occur in people of working age. Moreover, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) account for about 64–67% of the total number of deaths, and the trend towards rejuvenation of heart attacks has been observed for several years.

Currently, the number of hospitalizations due to stroke continues to grow. In 2024, this figure reached 137.5 thousand, which is 16% more than in the pre-war year of 2021. In the first 9–10 months of 2025 alone, more than 96,000 patients were diagnosed with stroke, and in the first three months of 2026, more than 32,000 cases of acute cerebral stroke have already been recorded in Ukraine.

In addition to acute cerebral circulatory disorders, ischemic heart disease becomes a companion for more than 820 thousand Ukrainians every year, and the highest concentration of cardiac catastrophes is expected to be observed in front-line areas, where physical survival directly depends on the stability of the vascular system.

The combination of ignored hypertension, lack of systemic prevention and constant stress of war turns heart pathologies into the main cause of disability and premature death of qualified specialists, whose experience is critical for the reconstruction of the state. In conditions of shortage of people and resources, further ignoring this “silent” epidemic becomes a critical risk for national security, which cannot be blocked only by external assistance or the heroism of doctors.

The full-scale war provoked an unprecedented cardiovascular health crisis in Ukraine, turning chronic stress into the main tool of lethal influence on the nation. As of April 2026, every fourth citizen faces critical blood pressure indicators, which, according to WHO data, is a direct sign of the physiological exhaustion of society under the pressure of hostilities and economic instability. This situation indicates the formation of a persistent medical catastrophe, where the destruction of infrastructure and the impossibility of basic diagnostics become as dangerous factors as the immediate threats on the front line.

The foundation of this crisis is a destructive combination of behavioral factors and psycho-emotional overstrain, where 83% of the population is in a state of permanent stress, and 72% suffer from anxiety or depressive disorders. Psychological pressure becomes a detonator for heart attacks, while unhealthy nutrition, high levels of smoking and alcohol abuse, which are often destructive ways of self-regulation, make Ukraine a leader in the level of mortality from non-communicable diseases. The situation is exacerbated by patients’ ignoring early symptoms and progressive obesity, which, together with the lack of regular cholesterol control, create ideal conditions for the development of irreversible pathologies.

The gap between domestic indicators and European standards becomes especially noticeable in fatal cases, as the mortality rate from strokes in Ukraine remains 2-3 times higher than in EU countries. This gap is due to both biological factors and the systemic destruction of infrastructure, because during 2025 alone, the intensity of attacks on medical institutions increased by 20%, which actually paralyzed the possibility of providing emergency care in a difficult hour. A direct consequence of this is a catastrophic subjective assessment of one’s own condition by citizens, in particular, in front-line territories, 59% of residents characterize their health as extremely unsatisfactory.

The final element of this crisis is the acute financial and logistical inaccessibility of treatment, which forces 8 out of 10 Ukrainians to refuse necessary medications due to their price or the disappearance of pharmacy chains in combat zones. When 80% of patients are deprived of basic pharmacological support, the cardiovascular system ceases to be a matter of medicine alone, turning into a global challenge for national security. The combination of destroyed hospitals, constant adrenaline exhaustion and the inability to get a blood pressure pill in time creates a vicious circle, where every attack on the power system or civilian infrastructure is automatically converted into new figures in the statistics of cardiology departments.

Failure of prevention in Ukraine

Analysis of the situation in Ukraine in the pre-war period demonstrates a deep structural crisis of the population’s health, where cardiovascular diseases were already a dominant factor at that time. Statistical data, recording from 411 to 430 thousand deaths during 2021, actually equate the scale of this domestic threat to the consequences of global catastrophes. At the same time, circulatory pathologies occupy an abnormal share of 60% – 64% in the total number of deaths, which makes the heart muscle the most vulnerable link in the body of a Ukrainian and brings these diseases to the undisputed first place among the causes of premature death.

The foundation for such critical statistics is laid due to the aggressive profile of risk factors that were rooted in the everyday life of pre-war society. Hypertension, which affects 41.6% of women and almost 45% of men, combined with a high level of smoking (27.4% of the population), created the effect of a “perfect storm” for the vascular system.

It should be noted that the state of public health in 2021 recorded a chronic national crisis, where every 2 out of 3 deaths were caused by circulatory diseases, which in many cases were subject to prevention or timely control.

However, a comparative analysis of medical statistics in 2021 and 2026 records a rapid increase in cardiovascular diseases. If the pre-war crisis was a consequence of lifestyle, then today’s jump in the number of strokes by 16% and the transition of 83% of the population to a state of permanent stress indicate that Ukraine’s human resources are being depleted faster than its infrastructure.

The situation, where every fourth citizen has critical blood pressure indicators, and the share of mortality from heart pathologies reaches an abnormal 67%, turns the cardiovascular system into the main internal vulnerability of the state. In fact, chronic psycho-emotional exhaustion has become a “silent weapon” that knocks out the most able-bodied population on a par with direct military threats, making the issue of access to basic therapy the main element of the country’s survival.

Comparative characteristics of cardiovascular diseases in Ukraine

Despite the extremely high rates of cardiovascular diseases, Ukraine has major problems with their prevention both on the part of the state and the population. The main reason is that prevention in Ukraine has not become a mandatory organizational practice. It exists as a correct declaration, separate orders, recommendations and programs, but not as a rigidly built route for millions of people.

In normal preventive logic, a person of a certain age or with a certain set of risks automatically falls into the field of attention of the primary care provider: their blood pressure is regularly measured, their cardiovascular risk is assessed, tests are monitored, the goals of treatment are explained, they are checked to see if they are actually taking medications, and they are not released from supervision after the first consultation. In Ukraine, this chain is often broken at the start. The patient comes not because he was called for a preventive examination, but because he is already feeling unwell. The doctor fixes the problem, prescribes therapy, but the mechanism for bringing the patient to stable control works poorly or does not work at all.

In Ukraine, the prevention of cardiovascular diseases fails primarily because the healthcare system works not on prevention, but on saving the sick patient. Money, resources and attention are spent mainly on heart attacks, strokes, stenting and rehabilitation, while work with people without obvious symptoms is financed on a residual basis and often depends on the initiative of individual family doctors. That is, prevention is financed on a residual basis and often relies not on the system, but on the enthusiasm of individual family doctors.

No less telling is the failure of medical check-ups and regular check-ups: preventive examinations often exist only formally, patients come to the doctor only when they are “pressed,” and doctors, due to queues, workload, and bureaucracy, do not have time to calmly calculate the risks for a person without complaints. Because of this, a mass culture of screening has not formed in the country: most people do not check their lipid profile or sugar level already at the age of 30-35, and high blood pressure is often found out not in the family doctor’s office, but in the ambulance.

The situation is further aggravated by the economic barrier, because real prevention today is an expensive way of life: high-quality nutrition with fish, vegetables, and healthy fats is too expensive for many Ukrainians, so the diet is shifting towards cheap carbohydrates, excess salt, and trans fats, which directly harm blood vessels. The same goes for physical activity: access to gyms, swimming pools, or even a stable exercise regimen in many regions is limited either by war, price, air raid warnings, or power outages.

This crisis is finally being brought to a head by a psychological factor, because the war has destroyed the planning horizon for many people: the logic of “why protect your blood vessels 20 years in advance if a missile could fly in tomorrow” has become commonplace. Against this background, instead of prevention at a doctor, self-medication is spreading: Ukrainians prescribe “heart drops,” vitamins, and medications without proven effectiveness that only give the illusion of health care but do not reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Ultimately, the reason for the unsatisfactory state of prevention is that in Ukraine cardiovascular diseases have not yet become the object of systematic attention of the state. They are recognized, talked about, but they are not consistently addressed at the level of state policy, primary care, financial incentives, communication with the patient, and daily medical supervision. Because of this, prevention exists mostly in words, and the real trajectory of the patient too often begins not with early detection, but with a complication. Therefore, the problem of cardiovascular diseases in Ukraine remains both medical and managerial. Further ignoring of the cardiological crisis in Ukraine by the state will inevitably lead to its loss of ability to recover due to the physical exhaustion of human resources.