Come here for two wars, not one. The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War is a ten-hectare memorial complex cut into the Pechersk slope at vul. Lavrska 24, beside the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. The giant stainless-steel figure crowning it — 62 metres tall, a sword raised over the Dnipro, pickable out from half of Kyiv — is only the landmark you steer by.
Alongside the halls on 1939–1945, the museum now documents the fighting going on today, and the place has spent the last decade shedding its Soviet frame. This is not parade-ground triumph but an honest, often heavy account of occupation, resistance and the price of freedom — the old war and today's.
The complex opened on Victory Day, 9 May 1981, with Leonid Brezhnev presiding, conceived as one organism: a museum block crowned by a colossal figure. The Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, who had already raised the vast The Motherland Calls at Volgograd, began the design; after his death in 1974 Vasyl Borodai reworked and finished it.
For its first decades it was the Museum of the Great Patriotic War — the Soviet frame for 1941–1945. In July 2015, under Ukraine's decommunization laws, it took its present name, and the story shifted with it: away from the myth of 'liberation' toward the harder record of Ukrainians caught in the war — occupation, forced labour, the Holocaust, the millions who never came home.
Counting the plinth, Mother Ukraine tops 102 metres; the figure alone stands 62 and weighs some 560 tonnes of stainless steel, the shield on her arm 13 metres high. The sword is 16 metres — four shorter than first drawn. Locals say it was trimmed so the tip would never top the cross on the Lavra's bell tower; the engineers cite wind-tunnel tests.
For years the statue carried the Soviet hammer and sickle on that shield. In August 2023 it was cut away and a Ukrainian trident raised in its place, unveiled on Independence Day — the last deliberate step from an imperial monument to a national one. The old name, the Motherland Monument, is giving way to Mother Ukraine. Viewing platforms sit inside the figure, though access depends on weather and the security situation — ask on the day.
The main museum is sunk into the plinth below the statue. Its holdings run to more than 300,000 items — documents and photographs, the belongings of soldiers and civilians, weapons, medals, letters from the front. The permanent route runs from the pre-war mood through invasion, occupation and resistance to liberation and its long aftermath, and makes no effort to comfort you.
Its quiet centre is the Hall of Memory, a darkened, domed space built for mourning rather than facts; marble plaques carry the carved names of more than 11,600 soldiers. Give the indoor exhibition at least an hour and a half — more if you read every label.
You can spend an afternoon here without a ticket. The approach runs along the Alley of Hero Cities, pylons honouring the cities that took the war's heaviest blows — though at the end of 2024 the Russian and Belarusian names were stripped from it. A bronze bowl, the Flame of Glory, is lit on ceremonial days.
Then the open-air arsenal, a magnet for children: artillery, armour and aircraft you can walk straight up to, a plane and a helicopter among them, no glass in the way. Wear good shoes — the grounds are large, steep in places and full of stairs, and you'll want to see all of it.
The most important thing to know about the museum today is that it is no longer only about the middle of the last century. Its permanent exhibition Ukraine — Crucifixion is described as the world's first mounted during an active war; among its exhibits are the remains of a downed Russian helicopter. More than 20,000 objects have entered the collection since 24 February 2022.
This is the hardest part of any visit. The evidence — wrecked machines, personal effects, photographs and film carried back from de-occupied towns — is not distant textbook history but lives being decided in real time, perhaps of people the visitor knew. Set aside extra time, and some emotional reserve.
The complex sits on the right-bank Dnipro slopes at vul. Lavrska 24, beside the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. The nearest metro is Arsenalna — 105.5 metres down, for decades billed as the deepest station in the world, so the escalator alone is a fair prelude. From there it is about two kilometres on foot past the Lavra, the monument a landmark you cannot lose.
Walking the grounds is generally free; the halls, temporary shows and the climb inside the monument need a ticket. During air-raid alerts visits pause and everyone moves to shelter, so don't plan to the minute. Pair it with the Lavra — a thousand-year cave monastery on the UNESCO list, minutes away — for a full day on the Dnipro hills.
Просторий музей із дуже змістовними та цікавими експозиціями. Без сумніву, його варто включити у свій маршрут. Є також виставки, присвячені сучасній російсько-українській війні, тому відвідування особливо доречне і з цієї причини. Працівники ввічливі, допомогли зорієнтуватися, що і де знаходиться.
Однозначно варто хоча б раз сюди завітати. Атмосфера тут доволі особлива й важка. Є де довго й цікаво погуляти, а дітям разом із батьками теж не буде нудно. У музеї можна купити цікаві сувеніри та книжки, а для деяких категорій відвідувачів діють пільги.
Експозиції справили сильне враження - і про Другу світову, і про сучасну війну. Окремо запам’яталися висячі телефонні трубки, через які ніби загиблі українські військові розповідають про пережите на фронті. Рекомендую завітати.
