On April 4, 2025, a Russian missile strike on the city of Krivyi Rih killed nine children, most of whom were playing in a park. The U.N. Human Rights Office said the attack, which killed 20 people in total, was the deadliest single strike to claim children’s lives that it had verified since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The U.N. has recorded more than 2,500 child casualties but notes the actual toll is likely far higher, particularly when considering the scale of damage to children’s mental health and well-being. The psychological toll on Ukrainian children is even more widespread. To understand the war’s impact on children, Meduza spoke with Elina Bytyuk, a psychologist at the Dnipro-based nonprofit Children New Generation.
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Ukrainian children and teenagers — exposed to death, destruction, displacement, and deprivation — are at heightened risk of mental health issues, including complex PTSD, which often requires more long-term, intensive treatment than post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a single event.
“If a child was [in a shelter] during bombardment, the memory of these events can haunt them for the rest of their life,” says Elina Bytyuk, a psychologist with Children New Generation, a Dnipro-based nonprofit organization that helps displaced families in eastern Ukraine.
Children who live farther away from the front are also affected, with regular air raid sirens and fears of the next Russian attack leaving them in a constant state of uncertainty. “When a person is in a prolonged state of uncertainty, the ‘fight, flee, or freeze’ defense mechanism is also activated. And if this mechanism is activated for a long time, it may subsequently lead to depression,” Bytyuk explains.
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Like other psychologists working with Children New Generation, Bytyuk works with children and parents alike. “A child’s primary defense and basic foundation is family. This is his source of support,” she says. “And if dad’s gone to the front and mom got sick due to stress, then the child may develop a feeling of internal isolation from everything.”
According to Vasyl Lutsyk, the head of Ukraine’s National Social Service, Russia’s war had deprived more than 13,000 children in Ukraine of parental care as of last March. This figure included nearly 1,800 children left orphaned, as well as hundreds whose parents reside in the occupied territories and about a dozen whose parents are in Russian captivity, Lutsyk said.
Wartime immigration has also torn many families apart: some 6.9 million refugees have fled Ukraine since February 2022, most of whom are women and children. Another 3.7 million people are internally displaced. As Bytyuk explains, the grief that comes with family separation makes coping with traumatic events even more difficult. For children who have been displaced or lost loved ones, “This sense of loss and anxiety can develop into generalized anxiety disorder or depression,” she says.
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According to Bytyuk, both children and teenagers may experience mood swings as a result of extreme stress. And like adults suffering from PTSD, children who have experienced traumatic events may struggle with intrusive memories. “There are children who wake up at night [...] because [they have] intrusive memories, like war veterans,” she says. “It's impossible to suppress them by willpower alone.”
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Today, there are both local and international nonprofit groups providing psychological support for children in Ukraine, including through one-on-one sessions and group therapy. Psychologists can help children cope with both traumatic memories and ongoing threats — and teach them how to handle stress in the least destructive way possible. When it comes to treating trauma in children, Bytyuk says, “each child needs an individual approach.”
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