War is often narrated through maps, military briefings and geopolitical calculations. Analysts debate territory gained or lost, weapons deployed, alliances tested and red lines crossed. Yet for civilians, war is not strategic or abstract; it is intimate, invasive and deeply personal. It enters kitchens, classrooms, hospitals and family photographs. It disrupts routines that once defined normal life and replaces them with uncertainty and fear. In Ukraine, the Russia–Ukraine war has evolved into a sustained assault on everyday existence, reshaping how people live, move, remember and define who they are. Long after the sound of explosions fades, the human consequences: displacement, fractured families, psychological trauma and altered identities, continue to unfold quietly and relentlessly.
Civilians as the Primary Victims
One of the defining features of the war in Ukraine is the scale and consistency at which civilians have been exposed to harm. According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, with the majority of casualties resulting from explosive weapons used in populated areas. Missiles, drones, artillery and aerial bombs have struck residential neighbourhoods, markets, transport hubs, apartment blocks and places of worship.
However, the impact of war on civilians cannot be measured solely in deaths and injuries. For millions of Ukrainians, harm takes the form of constant exposure to danger. Air-raid sirens punctuate daily life. Electricity and water can disappear without warning. Parents fall asleep listening for explosions, calculating escape routes or wondering whether their children will wake up safely the next morning. Schools and hospitals, symbols of safety and continuity, are no longer assumed to be protected spaces.
Humanitarian research shows that prolonged exposure to such insecurity dramatically increases rates of anxiety disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress. Unlike a single catastrophic event, war in Ukraine has become a chronic condition. Civilians are not recovering from trauma; they are living inside it. For children, the elderly and people with disabilities, this persistent stress is particularly damaging, eroding both physical and psychological resilience.
Displacement on a Historic Scale
The war has produced one of the largest displacement crises of the twenty-first century. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more than 10 million Ukrainians, roughly one in four people, have been forced from their homes. Approximately 6.9 million live as refugees across Europe and beyond, while millions more are internally displaced within Ukraine, often relocating multiple times as frontlines shift and cities come under renewed attack.
Displacement is not simply a matter of physical movement; it represents the collapse of continuity. Refugees often flee with little more than identification documents and a few personal belongings, leaving behind homes, careers, social networks and a sense of control over their lives. Professional identities built over decades, teachers, engineers, business owners, are suddenly suspended or erased. The loss of routine and purpose can be as destabilizing as the loss of property.
Family separation has become one of the most painful dimensions of displacement. Due to military conscription laws and security concerns, many men remain in Ukraine while women, children and elderly relatives seek safety abroad. Families are fractured across borders, time zones and legal systems, communicating through phone screens while navigating vastly different realities. This fragmentation generates long-term emotional strain, particularly for children growing up without one or both parents physically present.
For internally displaced persons, the challenges are different but no less severe. Temporary shelters, overcrowded apartments, limited employment opportunities and overstretched public services create conditions of prolonged insecurity. Studies conducted by international aid agencies indicate that displaced households face significantly higher risks of poverty, food insecurity and declining health. Displacement becomes not a temporary phase but a prolonged state of limbo.
Children and the Interruption of Childhood
Children are among the most vulnerable victims of the war, not only because of their physical dependence on adults, but because war intrudes at a formative stage of life. Millions of Ukrainian children have had their education disrupted due to damaged schools, security risks or repeated displacement. UNICEF reports that thousands of schools have been destroyed or damaged, forcing children into remote learning, underground classrooms or extended educational gaps.
Education is more than academic instruction; it provides structure, socialization and a sense of future orientation. When schooling becomes irregular or inaccessible, children lose more than lessons; they lose stability. For those in displacement, adapting to new languages, curricula and peer groups adds another layer of stress.
Psychologically, children are absorbing the weight of war in ways that may not be immediately visible. Exposure to violence, the loss of caregivers, separation from friends and prolonged uncertainty shape emotional development. Mental health specialists working with displaced Ukrainian children report high levels of trauma-related symptoms, including sleep disturbances, anxiety, emotional withdrawal and difficulty concentrating. Without sustained support, these effects risk shaping an entire generation’s relationship with trust, authority and security.
Families of Soldiers
While attention often focuses on those fighting at the front, the families of soldiers endure a parallel and often invisible form of suffering. Partners manage households alone under economic and emotional strain. Parents wait for messages that may never come. Children grow up with prolonged absence, learning to normalize fear and uncertainty.
The psychological burden carried by families of combatants is distinct. Unlike civilians displaced by bombardment, these families live with constant anticipation, fear of injury, capture or death. When soldiers go missing or are taken prisoner, grief becomes ambiguous and unresolved. There is no funeral, no closure, only the persistent tension between hope and despair.
Humanitarian organizations working in Ukraine report that families of military personnel experience higher levels of psychological distress than the general population. This suffering rarely appears in official statistics, yet it deeply shapes community life, contributing to collective anxiety and exhaustion.
The Destruction of Civilian Infrastructure
Beyond direct violence, the war has systematically undermined the infrastructure that sustains civilian life. Energy facilities have been repeatedly targeted, leading to widespread electricity and heating shortages, particularly during harsh winter months. Water systems, transportation networks and communication infrastructure have also been damaged, amplifying everyday hardship.
Healthcare has been especially affected. The World Health Organization has documented hundreds of attacks on medical facilities, ambulances and health workers. Hospitals struggle to function amid power outages, shortages of supplies and staff exhaustion. Civilians suffer not only from war-related injuries but from untreated chronic illnesses, interrupted maternal care and delayed emergency responses.
This indirect mortality, deaths caused by the collapse of essential services rather than direct attacks, is a hidden but significant component of the war’s human cost. When systems fail, vulnerability increases, particularly for those already at risk: the elderly, people with disabilities and those with chronic conditions.
Identity Under Pressure
War does not only destroy physical spaces; it reshapes identity. For many Ukrainians, displacement, loss and shared suffering have intensified questions of belonging and national identity. Sociological research among refugees suggests that maintaining language, cultural practices and historical narratives plays a critical role in psychological resilience. Identity becomes a resource for survival, a way of preserving meaning amid chaos.
At the same time, identity is evolving. Ukrainians living abroad must navigate integration into host societies while preserving emotional and cultural ties to home. They balance gratitude for safety with guilt over leaving, and hope for return with fear of what remains. Those who stay in conflict zones adapt daily routines to wartime realities, redefining what “normal” means under constant threat.
In this context, identity becomes less tied to geography and more anchored in shared experience, memory and endurance. Being Ukrainian is no longer only about place, but about collective resilience in the face of prolonged violence.
Resilience as a Daily Practice
Despite the devastation, resilience in Ukraine is not an abstract slogan or heroic ideal; it is a daily practice. Communities organize volunteer networks to distribute food, repair damaged homes and evacuate the vulnerable. Teachers continue lessons in basements and shelters. Medical workers improvise under impossible conditions. Parents invent rituals to calm children during air raids.
These actions do not erase suffering, but they counter its isolating effects. Research in humanitarian psychology consistently shows that community-level solidarity significantly reduces long-term psychological harm. Social connection, even under extreme stress, acts as a protective factor. In Ukraine, resilience is collective, pragmatic and often quiet.
The Long Road Ahead
Even if active fighting were to end tomorrow, the human consequences of the war would persist for decades. Millions of displaced people will face difficult decisions about whether to return or rebuild their lives elsewhere. Landmines, destroyed housing and economic collapse will slow reconstruction. Mental health systems, already strained, will struggle to address trauma on a national scale.
Yet surveys conducted by UNHCR suggest that the desire to return home remains strong. A majority of refugees and internally displaced Ukrainians express hope of going back when conditions allow. This aspiration reflects not denial of trauma, but attachment, to place, memory and the possibility of rebuilding a life that feels whole again.
Conclusion
The human cost of the war in Ukraine cannot be reduced to casualty figures or displacement statistics. It is found in interrupted childhoods, fractured families, eroded trust and identities reshaped by loss and endurance. Civilians are not collateral to this conflict; they are its central victims.
At the same time, the resilience displayed across Ukrainian society complicates simplistic narratives of victimhood. Amid destruction, people continue to teach, care, remember and hope. To understand this war fully requires listening not only to battlefield reports or diplomatic statements, but to the lived experiences of those whose lives have been irrevocably altered. In the end, it is these human stories, not territorial gains or military outcomes, that will define the true legacy of the conflict.
The writer is a journalist, journalism lecturer, and a member of the Ghana Journalists Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors and the African Journalism Education Network.
