The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has inflicted profound and lasting trauma on its youngest citizens. For over 1,400 days, children have been displaced, orphaned, and killed as a direct consequence of the war initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those who have survived are now grappling with the psychological scars and the stark reality of a disrupted childhood, with many fearing for their future due to the prolonged exposure to violence and a lack of consistent education.
Voices of Resilience and Loss
The stories emerging from Ukraine paint a vivid picture of this lost generation. Kateryna, a 17-year-old originally from Kharkiv, was forced to relocate to Kyiv to escape the fighting. She lost her father, who was serving in the Ukrainian military, a loss that has fundamentally altered her life. “The last four years have completely flipped my life upside down,” she shared.
Maksym, a 13-year-old from the southern city of Oleshky, experienced the occupation of his hometown early in the conflict. His childhood dreams of attending school and seeing friends have been replaced by a yearning for a life free from the constant threat of air raid sirens. “I learned pretty early what fear and not knowing what tomorrow will bring feel like,” he reflected.
Twelve-year-old Gloria vividly recalls fleeing her home in Boyarka, near Kyiv, with the ominous sound of fighter jets overhead. Even now, she wakes up in a fright when flashes of explosions outside illuminate her bedroom. “These four years, my country has been crying. And I dream that this crying will turn into joy and laughter,” she expressed with a mix of hope and sorrow.
The Scale of Displacement and Devastation
Kateryna, Maksym, and Gloria are not isolated cases. They are among the more than two-and-a-half million Ukrainian children who have been displaced from their homes. While over 791,000 children remain within Ukraine, nearly 1.8 million have been compelled to seek refuge in other countries, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The human cost of the full-scale invasion, which began on February 24, 2022, is staggering. Between that date and February of this year, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that over 15,000 civilians lost their lives and at least another 41,000 were injured. The OHCHR noted a particularly grim trend, with 2025 seeing more civilian casualties than the preceding two years combined.
However, for many Ukrainians, the conditions of war have persisted for much longer than the past four years. The annexation of Crimea by pro-Russian forces in February-March 2014 is considered by many Ukrainians to be the ignition point of the ongoing invasion. By 2024, the UN reported that over 50,000 Ukrainians had been displaced, and more than 100 activists and journalists had been forcibly disappeared. This means many Ukrainian children have spent their entire lives in a war-torn environment.
Letters from a War-Torn Childhood
In the lead-up to Christmas in 2025, children shared their poignant reflections with the international relief charity World Vision. These letters, shared with the ABC, offer an intimate glimpse into how the war has irrevocably altered their childhoods.
Kateryna’s aspirations for the future have been reshaped by the invasion. “My dreams used to be so normal: celebrating graduation with classmates, getting a new phone, redoing my room, having lots of money,” she wrote. “Now, everything’s different. I dream of helping people, becoming a doctor, living to old age, finding someone to love.” She expressed a profound wish for other children worldwide to never experience the horrors she has endured, particularly the terrifying need to distinguish between incoming missiles, drones, and bombs. “To never be thousands of kilometres away from home, completely without friends, and to never pray during another mass attack: ‘Please, just not our building, I haven’t had enough time to do so much, to say so much, to see so much.'” For Kateryna, every celebration is now an opportunity to express hopes for victory, peaceful skies, and the safe return of soldiers.
Maksym, now 10 years old and originally from the southern city of Mykolaiv, dreams of becoming a train driver. Captured by Russian forces in March 2022, his city, situated on the Pivdennyi Buh River, has faced immense hardship. “These last four years were super hard for me and my family,” he wrote. “Before the war, I really wanted to go to school, meet my classmates, and make new friends. Also, I wanted to go to a water park and go to the sea every summer because I love the sea so much. But the war stopped all of that. Now I learn from home, and I haven’t been to the sea for four years. My biggest wish for the holidays is for the war to end. I feel happy for the holidays, but only like, half-happy.”
Eight-year-old Maria (in 2022) recounted the chilling moment her mother woke her with the words, “Wake up, explosions!” The invasion marked a stark division in her life, transforming it into a “before” and “after.” Fleeing to her grandparents’ village, she was distraught about leaving her pet bird behind, a loss that became a symbol of the war’s disruption. “Mum comforted me. She said she and dad would be back soon. But we could only go home after half a year. My little bird died. In these four years, I’ve changed four schools, four groups of classmates.” Despite the upheaval, Maria has found solace in Kyiv, learning horseback riding and maintaining a hopeful outlook: “I try to think about good things … I believe everything will be OK.”
Artemiy, 11, who also moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv with his family to continue his education, expressed a similar desire for normalcy. “My life has changed a lot in the last four years,” he wrote. “I left my home and my friends … Now in Kyiv, I go to school because in Kharkiv, schools only work online.” His sole wish is for peace, to return home to his father, and for the skies to be free of rockets and drones. “I believe everything will be okay and the war will end soon.”
Gloria’s family experienced intense fear when missiles first struck Kyiv in 2022. “We didn’t really know where we were going or for how long,” she recounted. “We packed our things to the sound of jet planes, sometimes hiding under the table with my brother because it was so loud. Our hearts were pounding, and the noise made us jump. My mum was worried.” Their escape involved navigating traffic jams, witnessing tanks, and travelling through rough terrain as explosions and gunfire echoed behind them. They eventually found a road with fewer military vehicles but many cars marked with signs indicating the presence of children. Gloria became familiar with wartime terminology like “MiG,” “air defence,” and “Patriot,” and even found a way to make sheltering underground a form of activity, weaving nets for soldiers. Her ultimate dream is for the war to end, to buy a cockatiel, and for children to live peacefully, free from the memories of sad moments.
The Lingering Trauma of a Stolen Childhood
Alona Sirant, a mother from Kyiv who relocated her family to Australia in March 2022, shared her son Illia’s struggles. At 10 years old, Illia developed a profound sense of survivor’s guilt, going three years without crying or expressing his emotions. “In his mind, it was simple: ‘This is war, I must survive, no one will help me,'” Ms. Sirant explained. “It’s heartbreaking. Children carry the war with them even to a safe country. These kids are incredibly resilient … But they’ve lost their trust in the world.”
Despite being in a safe environment, Illia remains deeply affected. He anxiously checks on his grandmother, older sister, and nieces still in Ukraine, finding it difficult to share his own positive experiences when they are still in danger. “He says, ‘mum it’s not good because they are not safe’,” Ms. Sirant noted.
Ms. Sirant’s observations are echoed by other displaced and traumatised children she supported through video calls. She described a harrowing case involving a 12-year-old boy from Kharkiv who felt compelled to protect his parents, leading him to forgo sleep and friendships at school for fear of losing them. “These children have grown up too fast … they take care of other children, other friends and even their parents — if they still have parents, but they’ve stopped themselves to feel fear or love. It’s trauma.” Ms. Sirant powerfully encapsulates the impact of the war as “Ukraine’s stolen childhood,” arguing that Russia has not only invaded a country but has robbed an entire generation of their right to be children, deliberately attempting to break Ukraine’s future.
The Next Frontier: Educational and Psychological Gaps
Arman Grigoryan, World Vision Ukraine’s crisis response director, highlights an additional, critical threat facing Ukrainian children: the significant disruption to their education. Since at least 2020, the combined impact of the war and COVID-19 restrictions has meant that Ukrainian children have not received consistent or adequate schooling. This educational deficit, Grigoryan explains, has created a “multiplying effect” on their psychological well-being.
“The children are growing under the current circumstances and situation with all the stressors that are around them … in a much faster way than normally a child would do,” he stated. “Even when you talk with them, sometimes a smile wants to come out, but at the same time you feel through their eyes that there is a lot of sadness and a lot of stress.”
To mitigate some of these effects, “child-friendly spaces” have been established in shelters and centres across Ukraine. These spaces offer children a crucial opportunity to maintain social connections, interact with teachers and support workers, and temporarily escape the harsh realities of war. Grigoryan described these initiatives as moments where children can detach from their current state of reality and engage in creative activities like painting or crafts, fostering a sense of normalcy and hope amidst the ongoing conflict.
