As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds well into its fourth year, children remain among the war’s most vulnerable victims. Ballistic missiles have struck homes, schools, hospitals, and playgrounds. Russia is not only targeting children with missiles, it aims to militarize Ukrainian children on the occupied territories to prepare them for a future war with the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called attention to what he describes as the deliberate targeting of children. “It is wrong and dangerous to keep silent about the fact that it is Russia that is killing children with ballistic missiles,” he said.
Twelve people were killed and 90 civilians – including six children – were injured in a large-scale Russian missile and drone strike on Kyiv on April 24. US President Donald Trump even recently asked his advisers if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin “has changed since Trump’s last time in office, and expressed surprise at some of Putin’s military moves, including bombing areas with children.”
The attack came just weeks after a devastating April 4 strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih where a Russian cluster-armed Iskander-M ballistic missile hit the city of Kryvyi Rih killing 18 people, including nine children, and wounding over 40 others. One of the youngest victims was just three months old. The attack was a brutal reminder of Russia’s continued terror tactics, such as the July 2024 strike on Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, a facility filled with young cancer patients.
Ruslan, call sign “Mj.Pain,” a commander in Ukraine’s 23rd Brigade, said Russia systematically targets civilians. “Hospitals, residential buildings, and shopping centers are struck, yet Russian media claims they’re hitting military facilities.”
Peter Gelpi, an American volunteer in Ukraine since 2022, said he has been targeted despite driving vehicles clearly marked as “humanitarian” and “volunteer.” “Each strike was extremely accurate,” he said. “These can’t be mistakes.”
Between April 1 and April 24 alone, Russian strikes killed 151 people and injured 697 others, according to the UN – a 46% increase in civilian casualties from the same period last year. Russia’s war on children extends beyond missile strikes. It has forcibly deported more than 19,000 children to Russia. These actions have drawn accusations of genocide.
During the 1932–1933 Holodomor (death by hunger), children were among the most vulnerable and targeted victims of the Soviet-engineered famine in Ukraine. The Soviet government starved millions of Ukrainians to death. Despite their parents’ desperate efforts to protect them, millions of children starved, with historians estimating between 1.5 to 4 million child deaths.
Those who survived often grew up in orphanages that functioned as death camps, and many remain unrecognized as official victims. “The Holodomor has played a pivotal historical role in Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Beyond the battlefield, this war has been, in many ways, about the fight for historical narratives,” said John Vsetecka, Assistant Professor of History at Nova Southeastern University.
Natalia Kuzovova, Head of the Department of History, Archeology and Teaching Methods at Kherson State University, reflected on the generational efforts of Russia to kill Ukrainians, stating, “We talk about children who will grow up. Yet hundreds of Ukrainian children will never reach adulthood because they were killed by Russia.”
She drew parallels with the Holodomor, when the status of children in society differed significantly from today. At that time, the family structure was patriarchal, survival hinged on a man’s physical labor, and society was not child-centered. Family relations extended beyond the modern concept of a nuclear family, and during the Holodomor, as well as during the campaign against peasants considered wealthy, called kulaks, starting in the 1920s, entire “households” were subjected to repression.
“Even very young children were labeled enemies of the Soviet state and deported with their families, many dying en route or becoming orphans,” said Kuzovova. Teenagers were arrested for failing to meet grain quotas and starved to death in prisons and penal colonies. Children whose parents had been arrested were often left on the streets without care, and those placed in shelters perished due to a lack of food.
“It is believed,” Kuzovova noted, “that the most numerous victims of the Holodomor were children under the age of four, due to their mothers’ loss of lactation and the absence of age-appropriate food.”
“Even very young children were labeled enemies and deported with their families,” she said. “Children starved in shelters, prisons, and streets.” The most common victims, she noted, were children under four.
The psychological toll on today’s children is immense. Yuliia Matvievieva of the Volia Fund said reports show rising rates of anxiety, sleep disorders, PTSD, and depression.
Displacement, broken family ties, constant danger, and emotionally unavailable caregivers are all contributing factors. “Children retreat into the internet,” said Alina Holovko, coordinator at Dobra Sprava. “They live under chronic stress, fear of death, and psychological overload.” She noted that schools need bomb shelters and spaces for group activities. “In-person schooling would solve many psychological issues,” she said.
Sophia Yushchenko, co-founder of Code for Ukraine, said children will face lifelong consequences. “Education is disrupted, families are broken, and their sense of safety is gone,” she said.
She divided the crisis into three groups. First, children in free territories who have suffered physically and emotionally. Second, those abroad who may never return. Third, those in occupied zones taken to reeducation camps or adopted into Russian families.
The UN has hesitated to call this genocide, but Yushchenko pointed to the Genocide Convention’s clause on forcibly transferring children. “That’s exactly what’s happening,” she said.
She added that Russian troops often bring textbooks, destroy Ukrainian literature and churches, and install pro-Russia curriculum. “They replace identity with militarism,” she said.
Since 2014, Russia has promoted “patriotic education” in occupied Ukraine. After 2022, those efforts accelerated. Groups like Yunarmia indoctrinate children with military ideology. Some members have gone on to fight against Ukraine. On May 9, children in red berets marched through Red Square in Moscow, not to celebrate peace, but as part of Russia’s growing militarized youth corps, Yunarmiya.
Russia also seems to be using children’s summer camps in occupied Crimea as human shields to deter Ukrainian strikes, violating international humanitarian law by placing military assets near civilian areas.
During the Istanbul talks in early June, Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, reportedly mocked Ukraine’s demand to return deported children, dismissing it as “a show for childless European grandmothers.”
The UN reports over 2,500 Ukrainian children killed or injured since the full-scale invasion. These are not isolated tragedies, but the result of a systematic campaign to terrorize civilians and break Ukraine’s resolve. It echoes the brutal tactics of the 1930s, when Moscow deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor to crush their aspirations for independence. Then, as now, Russia seeks to subjugate Ukraine by targeting its most vulnerable.
An associate research fellow of the London-based Henry Jackson Society think tank, David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist, activist and security engineer who, multiple times during the Ukraine War, has traveled to and worked in the areas being fought over. He can be found on the social media platform X @DVKirichenko
