Through Their Eyes: Voices of Ukrainian Children
It is a series of short video portraits of children from Ukraine who have lived through war, loss, displacement, and profound change. These films give them space to speak, to be seen, and to share the quiet wisdom born from their experiences.
This project was created by the Ukraine Volya Foundation in collaboration with filmmaker Nora Jaccaud, founder of Human Postcards.
Our mission is to preserve the real stories of children, amplify their voices, and remind the world that behind every statistic is a living child with dreams, fears, and hope.
Masha lost her mother when she was eight years old. In 2022, a Russian rocket struck near their home, killing her mother instantly. Since that moment, Masha has struggled to express any emotions — even tears. In the interview, she told us she “forbade herself to cry,” believing that crying doesn’t help and only makes her look weak.
She carries a deep grief that she keeps tightly locked inside, convinced that she must appear strong and continue living, even if she no longer feels “normal.” Masha’s story reveals a child who survived unimaginable loss and learned to hide her pain in order to survive — a heartbreaking emotional armor many war-affected children develop.
Maksym is from Vovchansk, a town that fell under Russian occupation at the start of the full-scale invasion. While his father served in the Ukrainian military, Maksym and his mother lived under occupation, constantly afraid because he was the son of a Ukrainian soldier. They eventually escaped, but he saw his father only once more—just two days together—before his father was killed. He lost his home, his childhood, and even the physical memories they left behind.
During our summer camp, Maksym began working with our psychologist, and when we later came to film his story, he spent the entire day with us. Afterwards he told me that our time together made him feel lighter, safer, and “like I can breathe again.” I encouraged him to reconnect with our psychologist, and since then he has already completed four sessions. Today, he is beginning the long process of healing while carrying a grief no child should ever have to carry.
Kostya is from the Kherson region, where his village was occupied by Russian forces in 2022. During the occupation, he experienced an unbearable trauma: two of his closest friends were killed by Russian soldiers while he was on the phone with them. They had been his support system, the people who helped him survive the fear of occupation — and suddenly they were gone.
He was also confronted directly by Russian soldiers on his way to school, pushed at gunpoint and threatened in ways meant to terrify him and break his sense of safety. Since then, he has struggled to believe that good people exist at all, unable to understand how so much hatred could be directed at him when he had done nothing wrong.
Today, Kostya lives with his family back in the Kherson region. He is slowly rebuilding his life, rediscovering moments of joy, and finding comfort in simple things again — especially playing football, which brings him a sense of normal childhood he deeply needs.