He volunteered with a veterans association, trying to find meaning in helping his comrades.

But soon enough, he realized that what he and his colleagues really needed were jobs. With seed money from a Ukrainian-American investor, Pizza Veterano fired up its oven in one of the city’s malls.

The pizza place has yet to turn a profit, in part because a sign prominently declares that any veteran who steps in the door gets a free pizza. “The government left me broke,” one veteran, Aleksandr Petrov, said at the restaurant recently. “I love this pizza.”

But it seems to be thriving, packed with patrons most of the day. But to Mr. Ostaltsev and his employees, money is not the important thing. They want to offer a place full of hopes in a city and country without many of them lately.

Instead of two cooks, as originally planned, Mr. Ostaltsev hired five, turning out about 150 pizzas a day. The most popular comes with four types of meat — bacon, ham, chicken and salami — along with heaps of mushrooms and onions. On the menu, it is called The Dandelion, after the nom de guerre of Mr. Ostaltsev, a name said to send shivers down the spines of the enemy in the east because of his reputation as a fierce fighter.

Another selection much loved by veterans is the Ukrainian, similarly layered in chunks of the local bacon, called salo.