War in Ukraine: the childhood shattered by the war of millions of young people

A child at attention, at each military passage. No face-to-face school for him, because of the war raging in his region. From the height of his 10 years and with his fake bulletproof vest and a plastic Kalashnikov, he shows his solidarity with the Ukrainian fighters. “When the soldiers see me, it helps them to have better morale. This war is hard for them”, reacts the young boy. Several groups of children have picked up the same habit. One child even made a fake rocket launcher out of soda bottles, a symbol of a stolen childhood and young minds shaped by six months of war.

Missile fire now punctuates the lives of these young people. In the city center of Kharkiv (Ukraine), a father explains to his young child, whom he is holding in his arms, that it was the Russians who fired. In the apartments, a teenager is in shock. Her parents’ windows were shattered by the blast of an explosive. “We will take revenge, we will make them suffer too”he says from the height of his 13 years and a hatred of Russians already very present. “I’m tired of having pain all the time. These pains prevent me from sleeping”, testifies another young person, survivor of a burst of missile which plunged him three days into a coma. Traumas that will remain etched for life.