Children of War: Trauma, Education, and the Future of a Generation

The war in Ukraine, now stretching into its fourth year of full-scale invasion following a decade of intermittent conflict, has devastated not only cities and infrastructure but also the lives of the most vulnerable: the children. Displacement, trauma, disrupted schooling, and the looming shadows of conscription or loss have placed extraordinary burdens on Ukraine’s youth. While global attention often focuses on the battlefield, another front has emerged—one that will determine Ukraine’s future for decades to come: the battle to protect, educate, and heal the children of war.

A Generation in Turmoil

As of mid-2025, over 2 million Ukrainian children have been displaced internally or across borders. Many have lived through bombings, occupation, or forced deportation. According to the United Nations, thousands have been orphaned. In occupied territories, children face systematic Russification, indoctrination, and in many cases, forced relocation to Russia or Belarus, in what the International Criminal Court has classified as a war crime. In liberated areas, returning children often struggle with trauma, disorientation, and lack of continuity in their lives.

This generation has grown up amid sirens, basements turned into classrooms, and lullabies interrupted by drones. The psychological impact is profound and still unfolding.

The Psychology of War: Invisible Wounds

Children process violence differently from adults. They are more susceptible to anxiety, depression, night terrors, and regressive behaviours such as bed-wetting or withdrawal. In older children and adolescents, the trauma may surface in aggression, disengagement from education, substance abuse, or even suicidal ideation.

Ukrainian psychologists working with war-affected children report patterns of chronic stress, loss of trust and identity fragmentation. These are compounded in communities near the front lines—especially in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk oblasts—where the proximity of death is daily and visceral. In refugee-hosting countries such as Poland, Romania, and Germany, children often struggle with integration, bullying and a loss of national identity, especially as exile grows longer.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and UNICEF have launched joint programmes to embed trauma-informed approaches in schooling, train teachers in mental health first aid, and provide counselling services. But the scale of need far outstrips resources.

Schools on the Front Lines

At least 3,500 schools across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed. In areas like Bakhmut or Avdiivka, there is literally nothing left standing. In others, schools operate from bunkers or underground stations. The Ministry of Education estimates that only 60% of children in front-line or recently liberated areas have access to full in-person instruction.

Online learning—once the pandemic’s legacy—has become a wartime necessity. But with power outages, damaged infrastructure and insufficient digital devices, online education often remains inaccessible to the most vulnerable. In many rural or poorer areas, children have lost two full years of schooling.

Moreover education is not neutral in war. Ukrainian authorities have purged curricula of Russian influence, emphasising national history, Ukrainian language and resistance literature. In contrast, schools in occupied territories often face Russian-imposed syllabi, textbooks, and even Russian citizenship requirements for attending classes.

This bifurcation of educational systems is creating parallel realities for Ukrainian children, depending on geography, control, and access.

Child Soldiers, Deportees and the Militarisation of Youth

While Ukraine has not systematically conscripted underage soldiers, youth have nevertheless been drawn closer to militarisation. Teenagers serve as volunteers, drone operators, or informants. Many have lost older siblings or parents in the war. The Young Army Cadets initiative—seen as a patriotic training programme—has grown dramatically, raising concerns about the militarisation of youth identity.

Meanwhile, in Russian-occupied areas, children are subjected to “military-patriotic education”, trained in survival tactics, weapons handling, and glorification of Russian aggression. Footage has emerged of Ukrainian children paraded in military-style uniforms in Donetsk and Luhansk, echoing Soviet-era methods of indoctrination.

The international community has largely failed to establish a coordinated strategy to locate, repatriate or protect these children. Thousands remain unaccounted for.

Cultural Identity and Resistance

Despite the horrors, Ukrainian children have also emerged as potent symbols of resilience. In shelters and refugee camps, children draw the Ukrainian flag, sing folk songs, and organise makeshift plays about resistance. Their sense of national identity—while shaped by trauma—is often remarkably strong.

Language, in particular, has become a vehicle of both trauma and transformation. In Russian-speaking areas, many children have deliberately chosen to switch to Ukrainian as an act of cultural defiance. Schools promote Ukrainian poetry, folk tales, and songs that reaffirm identity in the face of erasure.

Creative therapies—art, dance, drama—are now essential elements of child-centred interventions. Projects like “The Art of Survival” and “Letters to Mariupol” offer children spaces to process grief and assert their voice.

Rebuilding the Future: Policy and Partnership

Ukraine’s strategy for child protection and recovery must address multiple dimensions: psychological support, educational reintegration, national identity restoration, and social cohesion. While donor support exists, coordination remains inconsistent.

Key priorities should include:

• Reconstruction of Safe Schools: With support from Western donors, Ukraine is beginning to build modular, fortified schools in front-line areas with bomb shelters and digital classrooms.

  
  

• National Mental Health Framework: A coordinated trauma-recovery programme across schools, clinics, and communities is essential. Currently, child psychologists are concentrated in urban centres, leaving rural and front-line children underserved.

  
  

• Child Repatriation Mechanism: Ukraine must work with international partners to create legal and logistical frameworks for tracing, documenting, and returning deported children—while offering them comprehensive reintegration support.

  
  

• Youth Engagement and Inclusion: Involving young people in rebuilding initiatives—through arts, activism, and education—will help them regain agency and hope.

  
  

• Refugee Education Abroad: With over 500,000 Ukrainian children enrolled in foreign schools, reintegration must be gradual, respectful, and supportive. Programmes offering bilingual education, remote Ukrainian classes, and psychological counselling in exile are vital.

Beyond Survival

The war has tried to rob Ukraine of her children—through death, displacement, indoctrination, and despair. But Ukraine’s children remain. They draw, speak, learn, and remember. They carry the traumas of shelling and exile, but also the seeds of resistance, memory, and eventual reconstruction.

Whether this generation emerges broken or bold will depend not only on the war’s end, but on the care, education, and opportunity they receive now. Ukraine’s future will not be written only in tanks or treaties, but in classrooms, clinics, and crayon sketches. These children are not just collateral victims. They are the unfinished story of a nation at war.