The Bulletin of National Defence University of Ukraine

The relevance of this study is conditioned by the need to revise classical paradigms of combat mental health preservation in the context of the radical transformation of the combat stress ecology brought about by Russia’s full-scale aggression, the mass employment of advanced weaponry, and chronic allostatic load. The aim of the study was to empirically investigate the transformation of the structural and level characteristics of psychological resilience and the coping strategy repertoire of Marine Corps service personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under conditions of high-intensity combat operations, and to develop and theoretically and mathematically substantiate a comprehensive structural-functional model for the optimisation of coping behaviour. The study was based on a rigorous methodological design comprising a series of sequential cross-sectional surveys conducted between 2020 and 2024. The empirical base consisted of Marine Corps service personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: a baseline survey conducted under conditions of positional warfare (2020-2021, n = 115) and an extended survey from the period of full-scale invasion (2023-2024, n = 120). The study employed a battery of contemporary psychodiagnostic instruments in their Ukrainian adaptations: the Behavioural Self-Regulation Style Questionnaire (SRQ), the Big Five Locator, the coping strategy diagnostic tools of E. Heim and R.S. Lazarus & S. Folkman, the S.R. Maddi Hardiness Survey, the CD-RISC-10 resilience scale, and the Spiritual Health Assessment Scale (SHAS). Statistical processing (IBM SPSS Statistics) included analysis of variance, the Kruskal-Wallis H-test, Spearman’s correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression. On the basis of the baseline survey data (2020-2021), it was mathematically demonstrated that the coping strategy repertoire – in particular, autonomous planning and positive reappraisal – acts as a powerful predictor accounting for 54% of the variance in the overall level of an individual’s psychological resilience. By contrast, the comparative analysis of the extended survey revealed a decline in the Integral Psychological Resilience Index (IPRI) under the impact of full-scale warfare. Increases in neuroticism were recorded, along with the emergence of a “cognitive narrowing” phenomenon characterised by a reduced capacity for long-term autonomous planning, and a substantial compensatory shift towards strategies of emotional distancing and social support-seeking (collective resilience). On the basis of the identified empirical deficits, an original four-block (target, diagnostic, content-formative, and outcome-criterion) structural-functional model for resilience development has been elaborated

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