The Children the War Left Behind: Ukraine's Orphans Three Years On

The Scale of Displacement

Ukraine's child displacement crisis is one of the largest in modern European history. As of early 2025, an estimated 4.8 million Ukrainian children had been displaced — roughly half internally within Ukraine, and half as refugees in other countries.^[1] UNICEF estimates that more than one in three Ukrainian children has been displaced at some point since the invasion began.

Children in institutional care faced a specific and acute version of this crisis. Ukraine's child welfare system before 2022 was already under reform — the government had committed to deinstitutionalisation, moving children out of large residential facilities and into foster families or smaller group homes. The invasion disrupted that transition entirely.

Orphanages in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Donetsk oblasts were among the first to be evacuated. Staff made decisions in hours: which children could walk, which needed to be carried, what documents they could grab, where they could go. Many facilities relocated two or three times as frontlines shifted. Some moved children to western Ukraine; others to Poland, Germany, or the Czech Republic.

The Deportation Issue

Separate from — and more serious than — displacement is the documented deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled territories. Ukraine's government has documented more than 19,500 such cases, though independent analysts believe the true figure is significantly higher.^[2]

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin specifically in connection with the unlawful deportation of children, alongside a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, who oversaw a programme placing Ukrainian children in Russian families.^[3] Russia has characterised these transfers as evacuation to safety. Ukrainian authorities and international legal bodies classify them as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

As of early 2026, Ukraine's government estimates fewer than 400 of these children have been returned.

Medaria Aid's orphanage work does not touch this issue directly — we work with facilities still operating inside Ukraine — but it provides essential context for understanding the scale of the crisis. The children in the orphanages we visit are the ones who did not get deported, who were not separated across a border. They are still in Ukraine, often still within range of shelling, and still in need.

What Orphanages Are Facing Inside Ukraine

For facilities that remained in Ukraine — either in western regions or in those that have stayed open despite proximity to conflict — the challenges are profound and largely invisible to international donors.

Infrastructure damage. Shelling, drone strikes and power outages have damaged or destroyed hundreds of educational and care facilities. Many orphanages now operate in buildings with broken windows, unreliable heating, and intermittent electricity. Winter is the sharpest test: children in facilities without functioning heating systems face temperatures that would be unacceptable in peacetime institutional care anywhere in Europe.

Staff shortages. Many carers, teachers and social workers have left for safer regions or fled abroad. Facilities that once had one staff member per five or six children now operate at ratios of one to fifteen or one to twenty. The children still arrive — from frontline areas, from families broken by mobilisation or death — but the capacity to care for them properly has shrunk.

Psychological need without psychological support. UNICEF's assessments consistently find that children in institutional care in conflict-affected areas of Ukraine show elevated rates of trauma, anxiety, sleep disorders and developmental delay.^[4] Psychosocial support — always underfunded in Ukraine's pre-war system — has been further depleted. Some facilities have no mental health professional at all.

Supply shortages. The items that disappear first in wartime Ukraine — hygiene products, clothing in the right sizes, winter gear, school supplies — are exactly what institutional care facilities cannot easily source. Unlike families, orphanages cannot call on extended relatives, community networks, or diaspora support. They depend on state budgets that are under extraordinary strain, and on donations from organisations like ours.

"We do not ask for luxury. We ask for the things a child needs to feel that someone has not forgotten them. Soap. A warm coat. A book. Something to hold." Director of an orphanage in Kharkiv Oblast, speaking to Medaria Aid volunteers, 2024

What We Found — and What We Brought

Medaria Aid has made direct deliveries to orphanages in Netishyn and Kharkiv. What follows is not a comprehensive report — it is an honest account of what our volunteers encountered on the ground.

In Netishyn, we delivered 300 teddy bears at Christmas. We were not prepared for what that meant to the children. Several had never received a gift addressed specifically to them. The bears were not just toys — they were evidence that someone, somewhere, knew they existed.

In Kharkiv — a city that has been under sustained aerial bombardment since the invasion began — we reached children in a facility close to the frontline. The staff there are extraordinary: they have stayed, they are still teaching, still creating something that resembles normality. What they needed was practical: warm clothing, hygiene supplies, items their state budget could no longer cover.

We tailored both deliveries to requests made directly by facility staff. This is our operating principle: we do not decide what is needed from a distance. We ask, and we bring what we are told.

The Longer-Term Picture

Ukraine's government and international partners have a stated commitment to resuming the deinstitutionalisation process when conditions allow — moving children from large orphanages into family-based care. This is the right direction. Research consistently shows better outcomes for children in family settings than in institutional care, even good institutional care.

But that process requires peace, functioning social services, and a generation of trained foster carers. None of those conditions exist yet. In the meantime, the children who are in orphanages today need support today.

UNICEF, Save the Children, and the IRC are all working on child protection in Ukraine at scale. Their programmes are vital. They also operate through systems — procurement, compliance, reporting cycles — that mean a child in Kharkiv may wait months for supplies that a direct-delivery organisation can bring in weeks. That gap is where organisations like Medaria Aid operate.

We are not a substitute for systemic support. We are the thing that reaches the people the system has not yet reached.

What a Donation to Our Orphanage Programme Actually Buys

We are deliberate about transparency. Here is what recent donations have funded in our orphanage deliveries:

Every item is sourced and selected based on requests from the facilities themselves. Nothing is purchased speculatively and stored in a warehouse. We buy what we are asked to bring, and we bring it.

If you would like to support this programme specifically, you can donate through our website and note "Orphanage Support" — we will ensure your donation is directed accordingly.