Traumatised and unable to speak: The Ukrainian children haunted by war

Gordon Cole-SchmidtFri, February 27, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC

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Some of the children taken into the Shevchenko home were abandoned at the start of the conflict and have suffered damage to their hearing since - Mirja Vogel

In the Shevchenko family home, a grim nighttime routine has emerged. The whirr of the air raid siren sends the youngest of the nine foster children to their adopted parents’ bedroom. Alina, 3, hides under the blanket. Ivan, 2, sobs. Anatoly, 10, sits alone.

Mishka, 16, checks the online chat groups to see whether it’s Shahed attack drones, ballistic missiles or artillery attacks flying overhead. Vika, 18, reads fairytales to the children who can’t sleep. Sometimes, her voice falters when her thoughts drift to her older brother, who was sent to the front line last year. He’s been missing for seven months.

Artem, 11, Zhenya, 10 and Maria, 7, find it particularly difficult to talk because of the trauma from four years of war in Ukraine. After the siblings were abandoned at the start of the war, cockroaches burrowed into their ears and died there. They had lost most of their hearing by the time a doctor at a hospital in the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi discovered the cause. He hadn’t seen a case like it in more than 30 years.

Nine foster children live in the Shevchenko family home, where they must endure the constant sound of Russian bombardments

But the damage to the crucial feedback loop that helps children learn to speak was done. So after the long sleepless nights, the three stay largely silent.

The Telegraph spoke with 51 children in three regions across Ukraine about the physical and psychological trauma they’ve faced since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion four years ago.

Over the last five weeks, The Telegraph has heard stories of children self-harming, having night terrors, bedwetting, panic attacks, violent bullying, emotional outbursts and complete withdrawal from communication to the point of near-constant silence.

All the children The Telegraph spoke to seemed to have a perpetual tiredness, caused by extended periods of sleep deprivation

Common in all was a perpetual tiredness, the type caused by extended periods of sleep deprivation because of the constant sound of war around them – of air raid sirens and explosions.

Many are haunted by memories of death and destruction.

Through a car window, clouded by condensation from his shallow breath, one child watched a Russian soldier execute his grandfather at a checkpoint leaving Volnovakha, a Ukrainian town captured by Russian forces in March 2022.

Some saw their homes turn to smoke and rubble. Others heard the thundering boom of missiles striking a car park in the central city of Vinnytsia, an attack that killed more than 20 including a toddler pushing a pram.

Some have been orphaned, others abandoned. All hope for a life without war.

A memorial to Ukrainian victims of war at Independence Square in Kyiv

In late January, a mobile team comprising a psychologist and support worker from local charity Slavic Heart was dispatched from Vinnytsia to a house on its rural outskirts. They had come to know the journey well.

It was -17C and the cold had been seeping into the three-room farmhouse for several days. Andrey, 16, sat by the window, drawing.

Andrey was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome when he lived in Selydove, Donetsk. The town was largely destroyed and claimed by Russian forces in October 2024, but his family had already escaped to the rented house in the Vinnytsia region by then. That’s when his health worsened.

Sixteen-year-old Andrey, who has Down’s syndrome, seeks refuge in drawing

“His medication stopped working,” his mother told The Telegraph. “He cried the whole day, uncontrollably. I couldn’t reach the doctors because they were all busy. Most nights he couldn’t sleep. He’d wake up scared, afraid to lose us.”

Andrey became less active, avoiding all social interactions. His grandmother said he was struggling to “leave the explosions behind him”.

“I still spend most of my time at home because it’s safe here,” said Andrey. “But maybe one day, I will start to work as a florist.”

Throughout this winter, the coldest in more than a decade, Russia has mercilessly attacked Ukraine’s electricity grid, plunging millions of Ukrainians into regular bouts of freezing darkness.

To the south of Kyiv, a secondary school was emptied of its 800 students for most of January after Russian strikes knocked out power and heating in the district. In the odd week when regular classes returned, teachers were instructed not to wake up students who fell asleep during lessons.

Daniil, 14, is one of 400 new students from the east of Ukraine who enroled at the school when the war began. “Exercise is the only way I can stay warm at night,” he said. His classmate Anna, 13, prefers playing her electric piano loudly when she hears the explosions over her family’s apartment. “I can’t stop the bombs with my hands, so I just use them to play instead,” she said.

A secondary school in Kyiv was unused by its 800 students for most of January after Russian strikes knocked out power and heating

One of the school’s teachers, Yana, who fled her home in Kharkiv where thousands of children now attend classes underground, understands the danger facing young people better than most.

“Only last month, another teenage boy came to me and explained he wanted to kill himself,” she said. “His father was at war and his mother simply didn’t realise how bad the situation had got.”

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According to the United Nations, one in three children in Ukraine have witnessed someone being killed or injured during the last four years of war. One in five reported losing a friend or relative. In front-line regions, 83 per cent of young children have shown signs of emotional distress and delayed development.

But much of the trauma faced by Ukraine’s children and the long-term impact on their future remains largely undiscovered in a nation under siege.

Wayne Jordash KC, president of the international law foundation Global Rights Compliance, said: “These crimes against children are unfolding on a vast and devastating scale. Their trauma will reverberate across generations.”

While some psychological help is available in larger cities, the country is contending with a severe shortage of therapists and child support staff in rural regions.

For Yuliya’s three young boys, they can’t sleep alone because of the fear of something happening to them. Her youngest, Misha, was a toddler when Russian soldiers stormed into their home in Kherson in southern Ukraine.

“They would have burned our house down if they had found men’s clothes in my wardrobe,” she said. “I took my children and left Kherson quickly after that.”

Yuliya is a single mother of three boys whose trauma has left them unable to sleep alone

Yuliya now lives in a damp, ground-floor apartment outside the city of Kropyvnytskyi, about 125 miles from the front line.

But the war has taken its toll. Her children live in a constant state of anxiety – and that means Yuliya must be their anchor.

“Mama cannot be frightened. Mama needs to be the superhero,” she said as she wiped away her tears.

Official figures state there are currently 59,000 children living without their biological parents in Ukraine. NGOs operating in front-line regions fear the actual number is higher as not all foster families are formally registered with the government.

Oksana, 49, took the decision to foster 10 children from occupied territories when the war broke out. “Conditions in some orphanages here are like prisons,” she said. “Children are bullied and beaten all the time.”

She recounted how at an orphanage one of her foster children had been forced to repeatedly roll a coin back and forth over the soft skin between his knuckles until they bled. If he didn’t comply, the kids wouldn’t let him eat.

Oksana and her husband Yuri rely on a youth support centre in the city of Kropyvnytskyi to keep their children social and active. The UK-headquartered NGO Plan International has funded dozens of centres like this one since the war began.

Bethan Lewis, the head of the charity’s humanitarian unit, said: “Ukraine is facing a ticking time bomb when it comes to children’s mental health. Years of fear, displacement and relentless violence are shaping a generation whose trauma will not simply fade when the fighting stops.”

Mykola is one of the hundreds of children who have been getting psychological support from the centre in Kropyvnytskyi.

His paintings hang on a white wall in the centre, far away from the young children’s play area.

One painting is dedicated to the defence of Donetsk airport. The other of a train leaving a burning forest is a representation of “leaving my peaceful past behind for a future unknown”, he said.

Mykola had fled his home in Mariupol during Russia’s siege of the city in 2022.

He was trapped in a basement with his mother for 20 days before being able to escape to Kropyvnytskyi. His version of escape is painting.

Paintings responsive particle

For millions of children in Ukraine, the memories of a peaceful past fade further with each new attack. As they emerge from another winter still at war, their futures remain uncertain and more endangered than ever.

Some children’s names have been changed.

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