Hope as educational infrastructure within war in Ukraine: A future created, not just awaited

Higher education is increasingly delivered within contexts of armed conflict and protracted political crisis, yet how university educators sustain the pedagogical and moral capacity to teach under such conditions remains underexamined. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with Ukrainian educators teaching throughout Russia's full-scale invasion, we use reflexive thematic analysis, informed by Tronto's ethic of care cycle, to examine how hope has been defined, enacted, and sustained in their classrooms. These educators do not treat hope as optimism; they enact it as an ethical, relational practice rooted in disciplined action, attentiveness to student needs, and collective responsibility for shared futures. They warn against ‘blind’ or ‘toxic’ hope, redefine victory in civic and existential terms, and frame teaching as intergenerational moral duty. We reconceptualize hope as educational infrastructure and offer actionable guidance for university educators teaching within wartime and crisis conditions globally.