What exactly is a Day of Mourning in Ukraine? Who has the authority to declare it, what rules apply, and why does it matter to society? Frontliner explains how both national and local mourning practices work to honor those lost in war.
Since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the assault has gone beyond the destruction of Ukrainian towns and villages—it has targeted Ukraine’s future. As of 2025, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children are officially known to have been forcibly taken to the territory of Russia or temporarily occupied Crimea. These were not evacuations. These children were not given shelter or protection—they were held without the consent of their parents, of the state, or of the children themselves. They are not orphans. They are not refugees, as the Kremlin cynically tries to claim. These are real boys and girls, with families, names, and memories—who, in a single moment, found themselves on the other side of the border.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. But in 1994, by signing the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine voluntarily gave up all its nuclear weapons—in exchange for security assurances from the United States, the United Kingdom, and, notably, Russia. By 1996, the last warhead had left Ukrainian soil. Today, the only reminder of Ukraine’s former nuclear status is the Museum of Strategic Missile Forces in the Mykolaiv region. While the disarmament was seen as a step toward peace, Ukraine was ultimately left with empty promises. The events of 2014 and 2022 have painfully proven this. A non-nuclear Ukraine found itself at war with a nuclear-armed aggressor—the very state that pledged to protect its sovereignty, and which holds the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.