By Olha Chepil | 2025-12-19

When a siren wails in Kyiv, families know they have minutes, sometimes seconds. Many keep warm clothes, shoes, water, flashlights and documents by the door, ready to grab. Ballistic missiles can reach the Ukrainian capital in minutes, leaving little time to get dressed and reach shelter.

"You need to get going very fast because you never know where the missile will land," Marianna Zakutnyaya, a Kyiv resident raising a 6-year-old son Mark, told Kontur.

Nights underground

For Mark Zakutniy, a first grader, nighttime often means the metro instead of his bed. When air raid sirens sound, he and his mother race to the nearest station with a backpack and sleeping pad.

"In our backpack we keep a flashlight, medicine, a mask, a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad and a favorite toy. . . . People say that the backpack is the same size as Mark," Zakutnyaya said.

Mark usually falls asleep underground. His mother almost never does. By morning, he heads to school and she to work. Zakutnyaya leads children's tours at the Sophia of Kyiv National Reserve and is raising her son on her own.

"The siren often goes off again when he's at school and he spends another few hours in the school shelter. But even there classes continue," she said.

The war has reshaped Mark's behavior. During a summer when sirens sounded almost nightly, he became anxious, more sensitive and began wetting the bed.

"He was running to the bathroom quite a bit. It didn't get better. We just had to wait it out," Zakutnyaya said.

She has lived abroad but returned, saying isolation there was harder with a small child.

"I had a really hard time psychologically when I was there. It's not easy here either, but at least I have relatives nearby," she said.

Growing fear

Kira Pastushenko was 3 when Russia's full-scale invasion began. At first, her mother said, the child barely reacted to the danger.

"Missiles were flying over us, and there were explosions and fighting. But she took it all calmly," her mother, Lesya Pastushenko, told Kontur.

Now in first grade, Kira reacts differently. Loud noises make her jump, cover her ears and panic briefly.

"But she looks at me, sees that I'm not worried, and calms down quickly," Pastushenko said.

When explosions sound at night, the family goes to a shelter. Pastushenko plays loud music to drown out the blasts and hands Kira a tablet to distract her, but sleep rarely comes.

"Putting her to bed during bombardments is unrealistic. If there are explosions during the night, it's impossible to go to school the next day because she doesn't get a good night's sleep," she said.

Blackouts are routine. Kira often does homework by flashlight during power outages that can last 12 to 16 hours. A backpack by the door holds documents, medicine and water in case of an emergency.

"At six years old she understands clearly that there is a war happening in Ukraine, so she's prepared for a variety of situations," Pastushenko said.

Kira's school recently sent parents instructions for blackouts and emergencies, advising them to place a note in the child's pocket with name, blood type and contact information. Parents were also told to pack a small "comfort suitcase" with a toy, coloring supplies, a book and warm clothes.

Childhood rewritten

Mariia Lionenko, deputy director of curriculum development at the Yevhen Petrushevich School in Busk, said the war has rewritten childhood across age groups, from preschoolers to 11th graders.

In the first weeks of the invasion, the school created its own safety system. Each child has an emergency backpack with water, food, a flashlight, documents and a note with their name. Some parents label children's clothing. Classrooms keep communal backpacks with water, food and board games, all carried to shelters during alerts.

"Even in the West, the countries have all realized that there are no safe places for schoolchildren," Lionenko told Kontur.

Classes continue underground. The shelters have generators and internet, so students balance notebooks on their knees while sirens wail.

The strain is growing nearly four years into the war.

"They're not having the childhood we'd like them to have," Lionenko said.

Teachers see declining concentration, social difficulties and weaker academic performance. Students in the upper grades have struggled the most, having endured two years of the COVID-19 pandemic followed by three years of war and repeated shifts between remote and in-person learning.

"They know how to work online, but it's very hard for them to cooperate in groups and to talk to one another," she said.

Children with special educational needs face particular challenges. Lionenko recalled a boy on the autism spectrum who panicked during alarms.

"As soon as an alarm would go off, he would go frighteningly hysterical. He would scream that we were all going to die. The other children would cry. It was a very difficult situation," she said.

The school opened a "resource room," a quiet space with poufs, pencils and games where students can calm down or talk with a trusted adult. The need is acute: some children have lost parents, some live in dormitories as displaced people and some fled through mined areas.

The toll is physical as well as psychological.

"In the last year we've seen many children with type 2 diabetes. This is stress-induced diabetes. We monitor their health and we were shocked," Lionenko said.

Such cases were once unheard of but now appear even among elementary students. Teachers focus on providing routine and calm.

"When the siren goes off, the kids look at us. It's essential for someone calm to be with them at that moment. Kids get used to war. That's the most horrible thing," she said.