Bringing a child into the world is an act of hope and joy. But for Ukrainian mothers, it is also an act of defiance. With war raging around them, they carry life forward, despite the uncertainty and fear.
For some, pregnancy was a decision made before the invasion. For others, it was a deliberate choice to reclaim a future that war had tried to steal.
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On the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we share the stories of women who carried and raised their children under the air raids and missile barrages.
This is their reality.
Dana Koshelnyk, 30 – mother of Myroslava (age nine months)
When Dana and her husband decided to have a baby in the middle of a war, it wasn’t a decision made lightly. Like many Ukrainian women, Dana had once feared the very thought of pregnancy in a country under siege.
But as the months of war stretched into years, something shifted. “The further we went, the more it became clear that the war would not end tomorrow and it was impossible to postpone life for later,” Dana recalls.
So, despite the ongoing war, she and her husband decided to try for a baby. Six months later, she was pregnant with their daughter, Myroslava.
Dana spent her entire pregnancy in Kyiv, with only a brief three-week stay with her husband’s parents in the Odesa region. To her surprise, she found herself relatively calm throughout most of it.
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“There was even a certain period, I think February-March 2024, without any worries in Kyiv at all. I just bloomed,” she says. But in March, the illusion of calm shattered as Russian forces resumed their relentless missile attacks.
By then, Dana was eight months pregnant, and the nights became harrowing. “Several nights in a row, rockets were launched, and I had to go down to the shelter every night,” she remembers.
The stress took its toll. On April 1, she was admitted to hospital with signs of premature labor. “The baby was still premature, the lungs weren’t fully developed, so I was put on preservation and spent a week under IVs. I felt terribly sick and dizzy.”
But thanks to the skill and dedication of the medical staff – working under the constant pressure of war – Dana was able to carry Myroslava to term.
The reality of war made itself known the very day her daughter was born. “I remember that, on the first day, an air alarm went off -- ballistic missiles were flying,” she says. “I grabbed the plastic container where my baby was lying in the delivery room and ran into the corridor. That’s how Myroslava showed her first ‘dedication’ as a child of war.”
Dana’s husband, trying to find humor in the horror, says “she was just born, and already hates rusnya [Russians].”
Bringing a newborn home during wartime was a new challenge. Dana quickly learned to function on little sleep and experienced the exhaustion of nighttime feedings blending with the anxiety of constant air raid alerts.
Living on the 23rd floor of a high-rise in Kyiv, she had to make difficult decisions – sometimes choosing not to run to the shelter in the middle of the night to avoid waking the baby.
“I would lie in bed, monitoring everything in real time, tracking where the missiles were headed. If I saw something coming our way, I’d rush to the corridor with her.”
Then came the blackouts. The summer heat soared to 37 degrees Celsius, and with no power, no water, and no functioning elevators, life became unbearable. “I was trapped on the top floor with a newborn. It was terrible,” Dana says. “I survived by occasionally going to my parents’ village, where at least the conditions were a little easier.”
Looking back, the scariest moment wasn’t after Myroslava was born, but during her pregnancy.
“On December 13, 2023, I woke up to such a powerful explosion that I thought our house had collapsed. My husband carried me out of bed to the front door. I was five months pregnant. A Russian missile had hit the road near our home.”
After months of enduring sleepless nights filled with sirens and explosions, Dana made a difficult choice. She took Myroslava and left Ukraine.
“This isn’t exactly an evacuation – we left for a certain period, not permanently,” she explains. “But for now, we are safe.”
Now, two months into their time abroad, Dana watches the news closely, waiting to see what the future holds. “We will decide when to return based on the situation in Ukraine,” she says. “But no matter where we are, my heart will always be with my country.”
Maria, 30 – mother of Oleksandra (age four) and Maria (age three)
Maria was 28 when the war started. Now 30, she is expecting her third child in July. Her daughters, Oleksandra (four) and Maria (three) were just babies when the first explosions shook their home.
“I woke up to strange sounds at four in the morning,” Maria recalls. “I thought a neighbor was beating carpets. Then I understood, it was explosions.”
She and her husband grabbed their children and rushed to the basement. “We brought their little beds down and lived there for 43 days. I didn’t let them go outside at all.”
On Feb. 25, just a day later, a plane crashed on a nearby street. “The whole house shook. I was terrified.”
When they finally left the basement, her husband joined the territorial defense. Soon after, he was mobilized. “He is still serving [in the Armed Forces of Ukraine],” Maria says. “At least he’s close enough to visit. That’s what matters.”
Deciding to have another child wasn’t easy. “My career was growing, my girls were getting more independent, and I finally had time for myself,” she says. “But we decided to go for it.”
Fear, however, is always present. “Every morning, I drop my daughters at kindergarten and go to work. If the siren sounds, I think – please, not the kindergarten. If I’m home – please, not the house.”
Her worst moment came during a massive missile attack. “Over a hundred rockets were launched that day. I was in a shelter with my youngest, but my eldest was still at kindergarten. I broke down. One child was with me, but the other was out there. I will remember that fear forever.”
Maria loves Ukraine, but the future feels uncertain. “Right now, I don’t see much of a future here,” she admits. She hopes her children will study abroad one day, but dreams of a Ukraine where they can thrive.
Her husband, however, refuses to leave. “This is his country, his home. He says he was born here, and he will die here. And we won’t go anywhere without him.”
Still, Maria holds on to hope. “We will do our best here. Having children in wartime isn’t irresponsible. It’s a hope for the future.”
Julia Satko, 31 – mother of Roman (age two)
When Julia discovered she was pregnant on Jan. 30, 2022, she was already eight weeks along. The possibility of full-scale war seemed distant, even unthinkable.
“I didn’t believe that such a thing was possible nowadays,” she recalls. “I was sure that there would be some kind of reaction from the civilized world and the Russians would be stopped quickly.”
But on the morning of Feb. 24 that year, her husband woke her up at 5 a.m. He had already packed their things. “It’s started,” he told her. “Take your things and let’s go.”
As the first missiles hit Kyiv, they fled. Julia, battling pregnancy nausea and shock, endured the long road to Rivne. “I cried, I was very scared, I wrote to my loved ones,” she says. A few weeks later, they moved to Lviv, where they stayed until summer.
Despite the chaos, Julia’s pregnancy and childbirth were smooth. She attributes much of this to Ukraine’s medical professionals.
“Our doctors and their attitude toward patients were probably one of the key reasons why I did not want to leave Ukraine,” she says. “I never felt that anything was out of control.”
During her pregnancy, she tried to isolate herself from the war, focusing only on the life growing inside her. “For those months, it was just me and my son. Everything else didn’t matter. My nerves, my fears - none of it. Because I was responsible for this little life.”
Her due date, Oct. 10, 2022, coincided with one of Russia’s most massive missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
“I woke up alone that morning – my husband was at work – and suddenly, explosions. They were close enough to home,” she remembers. “The only thing I thought about was that I couldn’t start my labor today, just not today.”
Despite frequent air raid sirens and the constant threat of attacks, Julia rarely took cover in shelters. “We would go to the bathroom sometimes,” she says.
Yet, she considers herself lucky. “Compared to mothers who gave birth during the evacuation, or under occupation, my difficulties were nothing,” she admits. “They only added a few more challenges to my day.”
One of the scariest moments came on Dec. 24, 2024, when a missile struck just meters from their home.
“My husband woke me up, saying there were explosions,” she recounts. “I tried to assess the situation first, but then a rocket exploded so close that I thought – this is it, this is the end. I looked out the window and saw a fire reaching the 10th floor of a building nearby. It wasn’t until midday that I fully realized how close we had come to disaster.”
Three years into the war, Julia still believes in Ukraine’s future, despite the anxiety. “I had grand plans before Feb. 24, 2022. Now, 99 percent of them don’t matter at all. But I don’t want to leave. We are a talented, hardworking, creative nation. I love my country. I can’t imagine living somewhere else permanently.”
Reflecting on motherhood in wartime, she is full of admiration for Ukrainian women. “We are incredibly strong, brave, and resilient,” she says. “The mothers who gave birth in 2022, those who decided to have a second or third child – my respect for them is immeasurable.”
When asked if she would have chosen to become pregnant had she known what was coming, her answer is immediate: “Yes. Why not? If everyone says no, there will be nothing left of us at all.”
She rejects any notion that having a child during the war is reckless. “You’re not a bad mother if you stayed in Ukraine. You’re not a bad mother if you left. Everyone makes their own choice. If I were to get pregnant again now, I would see it as a sign—this child was meant to come into the world at this time. And I wouldn’t resist it.”
Anastasia Yavorska, 29 – mother of Oleksandra (age three)
For Anastasia, the birth of her daughter Oleksandra on March 11, 2022, was not just a moment of joy – it was a testament to survival. Oleksandra was born via planned C-section in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine that had remained relatively safer than the east but was still affected by the war.
“I felt fear. And a very strong panic,” Anastasia remembers. “I had a terrible feeling just days before the full-scale invasion began.”
As war broke out, she and her family focused entirely on helping relatives fleeing from Kyiv and the eastern regions. Their home turned into a shelter, leaving no time to dwell on their own fears.
By early March, Anastasia was scrambling to prepare for her baby’s arrival, having realized they had none of the essentials – no stroller, no crib, nothing. At the same time, air raid sirens became routine, and the reality of giving birth in wartime started to sink in. On March 4, she was admitted to the hospital.
“Our ward was on the fourth floor, but the shelter was in the basement. Every time an alarm sounded, we had to be evacuated.”
On the morning of March 11, the doctors decided it was time. Oleksandra was born at 10:00 a.m., but just minutes later, an air raid siren blared. The newborn was quickly whisked away to the shelter, while Anastasia, still on the operating table, was left alone as the medical staff rushed for safety.
“I was lying in the corridor, unable to move, for two hours until the anesthesia wore off and the doctors returned.”
The first days of motherhood were defined by exhaustion and fear. Air raid sirens forced them down steep stairs to the shelter, a grueling ordeal for women recovering from surgery.
“Eventually, we were allowed to stay in the corridor instead of going down every time,” she says. Some alarms lasted for hours, with terrified mothers struggling to feed their babies in the dark. Many lost their milk supply due to stress.
“The maternity hospital was surrounded by government buildings, making us a potential target. The windows were blacked out, and we had no sense of time – just constant anxiety.”
Back home, the fear didn’t subside. They set up a full living space in her parents’ basement, ready to run there at any moment. One of the hardest moments came when Anastasia had to travel to Kyiv for medical reasons, leaving baby Oleksanda with her husband.
“I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I wanted to stop the train and run home.”
Despite everything, Anastasia and her family remain in Ukraine. “I love my city, my country, my community. We have everything we need here, and I don’t know if I could provide the same life abroad.”
Still, she is clear on one thing: her daughter will always have a choice. “I want her to see the world, to fulfill her dreams – wherever that may be.”
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