Mother of Motherland

Ukrainian mothers on raising children amidst war. Concept Eugenia Skvarska, photography Gabby Laurent

Svitlana Grotsees her son, Kostiantyn, and her future children as an investment in a country that has lost too many of its finest. “My dream is that every Ukrainian feels the responsibility to give new life to our country,” she says

“I’ve never been afraid of death before,” says Svitlana Grot.

Then she had a baby.

Svitlana serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “I was never looking for death, but the thought that I might die didn’t frighten me,” she says. Everything changed when her son, Kostyantyn, was born. For instance, she never hid in shelters during air raids. “Now I have to,” she admits.

Ukraine’s population is plummeting. In the first half of 2024, the mortality rate was three times higher than the birth rate, according to the Ministry of Justice. A United Nations forecast estimates that by 2075, the population could halve to 23 million. Natalya Shemyakina, medical director at Leleka maternity hospital in the Kyiv region, has also noticed a decline in births. “Before the invasion, we had up to 200 births a month,” she says. “Now, we’re down to around 100.”

Bella Khadartseva is expecting her first child. Her strength comes from her partner, with whom she chooses to build a family despite the chaos of wartime. “Raising strong, smart, and healthy children is the best thing we can do,” she says simply

Shemyakina was the obstetrician-gynaecologist who delivered my son. Platon was born on 16th December 2024. That morning, the Kyiv region was under another wave of drone attacks – while we were getting into the car to rush to the hospital, my partner spotted an Iranian-made Shahed drone flying over our roof.

Childbirth amid shelling has become the new normal for Ukrainians. Leleka and other hospitals have turned their basements into bomb shelters – Shemyakina has worked there numerous times. She has witnessed the labour of women who lost their husbands to the war – some killed at the front, others by shelling.

“The most important thing we must do for Ukraine is create new life, because so much is being taken from here,” says Natalia Wisłocka, who is nine months pregnant. A Polish woman working in cultural diplomacy, she moved to Kyiv in 2020. Despite having the option to leave, Natalia has decided to give birth and raise her child in Ukraine. “Kyiv became my home, and I want my son to be Ukrainian,” she says.

Having children during a war is not necessarily a good idea. Sometimes, when I scroll the news, I’m so overwhelmed by despair that I feel ashamed in front of Platon – for bringing him into this darkness. The thought that calms me is that the only thing capable of standing against death is love.

Here are the stories of the women who feel the same way.

Marusia Lukiantseva loves mornings with her son, Kyrylo, the most. “When I feed him and his tiny fingers touch and scratch my face, the whole world seems to pause,” she says. Is she afraid to raise a child in a country at war? Of course. But she wants him to grow up near his father. So they stay together, as a family

On the morning of the 8th of July the Russians launched a massive attack on Kyiv, striking several medical facilities: the children’s hospital Okhmatdyt, the private clinic Adonis and the Isida maternity hospital. Thirty-three people were killed.

That same day, Marianna Partevyian and her three-day-old daughter, Eva, were at Isida – but in a different ward. “The staff told us: there’s no other option, everyone must go down to the shelter,” Marianna recalls.

Marianna’s first pregnancy ended in the seventh week. She remembers hearing her baby’s heartbeat just as the doctor said, “The miscarriage has already started.” After that, she promised herself to do everything the right way.

I know what she means. A year before my son was born, I too lost a child. Even though I hadn’t planned for that pregnancy, the experience was soul-shattering. It was even more devastating when, after the termination, doctors told me my egg count was extremely low and getting pregnant would take persistence – and a small miracle. The miracle happened. He’s lying in his crib now, snoring like a T-Rex as I type these words.

Fleeing the war, Natalka Mashkova left everything behind in Kharkiv – a city on the border with Russia – her family, her business, the apartment she had bought just three months before the invasion. The birth of her son, Mark, became her escape from reality, shifting her entire focus to him. ”I love putting Mark to sleep,” she says. “It’s our time, just the two of us”

Marianna found strength in her partner, Yaroslav. He told her, “The soul has already chosen us, so don’t worry – everything will happen as it should.” A few months later, she got pregnant. Eva was born in the early morning of the 5th of July, a month before her due date.

Now, eight months into motherhood, Marianna feels her daughter is teaching her patience, gratitude and positivity. “I’m really grumpy,” she admits. “But when Eva smiles at me, I can’t not smile back.” She loves those quiet moments in the morning when Eva wakes up, nestles beside her, stretching and cooing softly. For Marianna, having a child during the war is a simple choice. She believes in Ukraine and wants to be a part of creating its future.

Marianna was born in Kyiv. When she was a year old, disaster struck at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and her family moved to Armenia. Then, in 1988, war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Marianna returned to Ukraine. “In a way, I had already been a refugee,” she says. “How long can one keep running?”

Having children is a challenge in itself – let alone during a war. For TomaMironenko, strength comes from the love her son, Platon, has brought into the world. “It’s like Platon generates happiness and light,” she says. “Watching so many people around him filled with love is inspiring”

When interior designer Iya Turabelidze reflects on the war, to try to make peace with everything that’s happened to her country, she turns to her son, Aeneas, for solace. “To me, he’s become a symbol that means we keep living,” Iya says. “Sometimes I think he wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the war.”

Aeneas is Iya’s youngest. Her daughter, Etta, is seven. Her son, Adam, is almost four. Aeneas will turn two in June. He was born as the air raid sirens wailed. “That sound became the soundtrack of my third pregnancy,” Iya says.

When she first found out she was pregnant, she took her kids to the playground in Taras Shevchenko Park, in the centre of Kyiv. The next day, that playground was destroyed – hit by debris from a Russian missile during a massive strike.

I remember that attack well – my partner and I live a block away from that park. That morning, we woke up to explosions and watched missiles carving their path through the sky. When we reached the underground shelter, I sat next to a family and overheard a boy, about 10 years old, asking his father whether the missiles we heard being shot down were cruise missiles or ballistic.

For Iya, that day was traumatic too. She left Ukraine but couldn’t stay away for long. She was back by her seventh month of pregnancy, and it came at a cost. In May 2023, when Iya was nine months pregnant, Russian forces carried out 17 air attacks on Kyiv – a record level of intensity. Some days, the capital was hit twice within 24 hours. “Every night I lay in bed, embracing my sleeping children with a large belly, wondering whether we would survive,” she recalls. “It’s really hard being a pregnant mother of two.”

Every child, every pregnancy is a challenge, Iya believes. “A new baby is both a new life and a small death – the moment they arrive, you are reborn. War or no war, when a child is ready, she comes.”

Iya Turabelidze is a mother of three. Her youngest, Enej, was born during the invasion. “Children teach us everything,” she says. “To cherish every moment, to be patient, to understand that perfection simply doesn’t exist”

Svitlana Grot and her husband, Artem, had planned a gender reveal party but it never happened. A few days before the event, they learned that their close friend had been killed at the front. “Artem called me and said, ‘Let’s just go and find out the sex,’” Svitlana recalls. “We discovered we were having a boy.” The couple decided to name their son after their fallen friend. His name was Kostyantyn. He had been fighting since 2014. He left behind a son.

Both Svitlana and Artem serve in the military. Artem is a veteran – he lost a leg in 2019. Throughout the Russian-Ukrainian war, he has buried many close friends. He lost people he considered the best, the strongest, the most honourable. Most of them never had children. “These people left behind nothing but our memories of them,” Svitlana says. “So for Artem and me, having a child is securing a small immortality.”

Artem had dreamed of having a child since the moment he went to war. Being so close to death changed him, Svitlana says. When she told him they were expecting, they cried together – a lot. “For him, it was immense happiness. For me too. But I think it meant even more to him,” she says.

She continued serving until almost her sixth month of pregnancy. Pregnant women aren’t deployed to the front, so she worked in Kyiv. Artem was anxious every time she was on duty. But he collected himself. As a serviceman, he has the utmost respect for the military.

Kostyantyn was born in October 2024. Svitlana is now on maternity leave, and she has decided to spend a year with her son. Every day, she learns something from him: like composure, and endurance. “I’ve been in stressful situations before,” she laughs. “But these are different.”

The first month of motherhood was brutal. The hormonal imbalance, the sleep deprivation, the struggle to understand her baby’s needs – combined with the radical shift in her life – hit hard. “I cried for a week,” she says. “Not because I felt bad or wasn’t happy about my baby, but because I had this feeling that I had died in that maternity hospital. And some other woman was born. I needed time to get used to her.”

Now she feels differently. “Despite wanting to sleep, despite the lack of time for myself, despite sometimes feeling a bit cut off from the world, motherhood is beautiful to me.”

As a teenager, Karolina Zvada dreamed of having three sons. Now, she is raising two sons and a daughter: Maksym, Sofia and Artem. “Looking at my children, I can’t help but feel proud of myself,” she says. “My husband and I took a really big step”

Art historian and curator Olga Balashova went into labour in the middle of the night. In wartime Ukraine, that meant she was alone and her partner couldn’t be there. Because of Kyiv’s curfew, Illya had to wait. By the time he arrived, her contractions were two minutes apart. Their daughter was coming. “It was an incredibly beautiful and deeply special experience. For a while, you don’t even feel like a human at all,” Olga says. “And when you finally meet this baby that was inside you all along, there’s just nothing like it.”

Though the decision to have a child was intentional, Olga never saw motherhood as her life’s purpose. She’s deeply committed to her work and kept going right up until the moment Olexandra was born. The project that consumes her is reshaping art education. “We’re developing a vision of what art in schools should look like,” she explains. “Once the active fighting stops, our national priority will shift from defence to education.”

Olexandra is almost two months old now. She joins her mother’s work calls, sits through Zoom conferences. “She’s my focus,” Olga says. “Every evening, I read the news and can’t wrap my head around it. But compared to her, it all seems so inessential.”

To Olga, motherhood means being ready to do anything for your child. “When she cries, I always tell her, ‘Just let me know what you want, and I’ll give you everything you ask for.’”

Two days before the war, Ukrainian artist Katerina Lisovenko unveiled a new painting, Untitled. On a black canvas, a woman stands holding a child in her arms. Both of them have their hands raised, middle fingers up. Defiance is written on their faces. When Olga first saw it, she thought of it as a metaphor for Ukraine – where the most vulnerable, the women and children, keep fighting back no matter what. “To me, the image of that woman was an allegory of our country,” she says. “Now, it feels like a reflection.”

“One of the unexpected perks of motherhood is the invisible network of mothers that has always been there, we just never noticed it before,” says Olga. She’s absolutely right. All these women radiate light and love. And every morning, as I watch my son wake up and smile, I feel as if I too carry some of that light.

I can’t wait for him to grow up just a little, so I can tell him the story of how brave we were – him, me and all these women.

Photography Gabby Laurent

Creative production and styling Eugenia Skvarska

Production Mariia Nikolaienko

Photo assistant Kat Oleshko

Style assistant Yasia Tatsiulia

Beauty Kateryna Tokareva, Maria Sova, Sofiia Yakovchuk, Zhadan Daria