Ukraine, 5 Years On: Women and Children

2 hours ago
6 min read

By Christina Cushen

Ukraine has been a target of Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving thousands of Ukrainians and Europeans on edge not knowing when Russia will attack. Years have gone past where Ukraine has been trying to integrate with the western world and in 2014 Ukraine was taken advantage of by Russia. In this piece, I will be discussing the historic nature of the relationship between Russia and the western world, and the impacts of the Russian invasion in 2022 on women and children.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has never changed its imperialist stance. It continues to follow the same line as the Soviet Union, as “[t]he common denominator of all the new security problems in Europe is that they all lie beyond NATO’s current borders.” Due to Russia’s imperialist view, any expansion of NATO is a risky move as it would provoke Russian aggression into becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. This is exactly what we have seen with Finland and Sweden joining NATO months after the war in Ukraine commenced, but the threat does not stop there. Given that Sweden and Finland have joined NATO, there is a risk that Russia could invade NATO to stoke fear inUkraine.

Russia feels rejected and isolated from the rest of the world. We have seen this in 2005, when Putin famously stated that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” regarding Russia’s own security, and therefore Russia became more anti-Western. This was seen in 2008, when NATO membership was promised to Georgia and Ukraine; this resulted in the invasion of Georgia. Some suggest that NATO not promising membership to Georgia and Ukraine could have prevented the invasion of Ukraine. On the other hand, it is arguable that NATO refusing Russia membership provoked Russia further and therefore “[i]t automatically put Russia and the West on a collision course, eventually sacrificing Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s growing independence and alignment with the EU and NATO concerned Putin, acting as the trigger for war. In March 2014, before the annexation of Crimea, Putin stated that “[t]here is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line”. Given the ongoing threat that Putin sees from the West, Putin is using the Russia-Ukraine conflict to gain power and prestige for Russia, as Putin does not want to create a new Soviet Union but to “restore Russia to the status of a great power in Northern Eurasia”. For Russia to re-establish its power, it needs Ukraine, as “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire,” but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire”.

Russia has lost its superiority in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, Putin is projecting an aggressive stance to ensure that people within Russia support him and that he can gain territory from other states, but the West is not falling into this trap. Putin’s hope for Ukraine was “true sovereignty of Ukraine…only in partnership with Russia.” Putin went on to say that “It will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world . . . [Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine] will now act in geopolitical terms as a single whole…..Russia is restoring its historical completeness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together—in all its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians [i.e., Ukrainians].” Many Ukrainians are also Russian which makes this war even more distressing. Still, this statement is not unexpected after 8 years of battle with Russia since the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

While the war has continued to rage on for five years, we must not forget the most vulnerable people affected - the women and children of Ukraine who are being abused as a form of weapon by men. In 2024, the Voices of Ukraine Report, found that many women do not report violence against them by soldiers who are seen as heroes, as “a man comes back from war on leave, beats up a woman, neighbours call the police, and the woman refuses to write a report because it’s her husband, who’s fighting in the war. The romanticization of the military.” There is also a lack of security that women face in conflict zones as there has been an increase in women being targeted in shared spaces, especially when there is lack of lighting or in shared accommodation. One woman in a village described her experience where “[t]his guy would come to the Village Council in the winter. It was hard to shut him up. He touched my friend. We had to go in one direction to get home and he would follow me and made weird comments. Here is a quote: ‘I consider you a friend, but if you won’t want to be one, I will find you and stab you and your family.’”

In 2024, Iryna Dovgan, a survivor of sexual violence, spoke to some victims of gendered violence, including an 18 year old woman who was made to drink vodka until she passed out when a Russian Officer raped her. Even more more harrowing was the story of a 70 year old woman who became infected with Hepititis C when she was raped. Sadly, in Ukraine sexual violence has been occuring in every village however this is one of the world’s oldest weapons of war and now Ukrainian woman have become victims.

To date, children in Ukraine have spent an estimated 5,000 hours in bomb shelters and sadly this has meant that air-raid sirens are the new normal instead of sitting school exams. One six year old girl, Anya, has never been able to go to school and she expressed to the UNICEF workers that “I’ve never been to kindergarten. Mum says I might start school next year. I want to go to school because I could make new friends there. I also really want a dog, but my Grandpa is allergic, so we can’t have one.” Another 11 year old boy, Timofii, standing outside his childhood kindergarten which was bombed told the UNICEF workers that “[i]t's hard here. I have no friends. The school was destroyed, and the kindergarten was destroyed. Everyone has left, and there's no one to play with except my brother. I really want to go to a normal school and for the war to end.”

These children have had their childhood ripped from their arms while the war continues to rage on. These children only want to be able to attend school uninterrupted and to have a future. How can this occur when bombs are destroying schools and children have not been able to experience a day with friends?

One thing that has struck me is the deportation of innocent children. These deportations were justified by the Russian Authorities as ‘evacuations’ due to the risk of armed conflict; however, 80% of these children have not been returned. Furthermore, it is estimated to date that 19,546 children have been deported. The Russian officials have had no consideration of returning these children, instead placing them with families or institutions in Russia. These children have had their Ukrainian citizenship removed for a Russian citizenship, being taught the Russian curriculum and are being subjected to Russian propaganda against Ukraine. More concerningly, these children are given fake identities so their own families cannot locate them, meaning the exact number of children being deported is unknown.

At the United Nations General Assembly, President Annalena Baerbock described the ordeal that children in Ukraine faced and she emphasised, “Imagine you’re a 16-year-old going about your day […] when suddenly soldiers armed with machine guns wearing balaclavas to mask their faces burst into your home, they force you into your vehicle and drive you away in an unknown direction, and you find yourself stuck for months in a nightmare, with a different name.” Many people think that this conduct by Russia has only happened since 2022, but this has been occurring since 2014 when Russia conquered the territory of Crimea. Sadly, some of these children have been living in Russia since 2014, and their own families to this day do not even know of their location.

So many Ukrainian women and children have been traumatised by this conflict and they need hope. When is hope going to come for these women and children? That is the question that many people are asking. The world needs Ukraine, however, Russia’s aggression and disappointment at the collapse of the Soviet Union is what is driving this conflict. Ukraine has become a victim of an invasion which is now impacting millions of people. Peace will only come when Russia decides that peace is needed and currently, Putin remains motivated to continue the war because he has only been able to gain a fifth of Ukrainian territory.