'Instead of trees or houses, kids draw missiles'

AFTER nearly four years of brutal nighttime air attacks on homes, hospitals and schools, together with crippling power outages in the dead of winter, most Ukrainians have had their mental health stretched to the limit.

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But the effects on children go deeper - and, tragically, often unnoticed or untreated.

Ludmila Fedosova, a child psychologist in Kyiv for 30 years, said that before the war, she mostly saw youngsters with depression, usually caused by divorce or school bullying.

But from February 24, 2022, that all changed.

Ludmila said: “Instead of the children drawing pictures of sunshine, houses and trees, they started drawing missiles in the sky.”