Even in adverse conditions, people imagine what their own future and that of their country will look like. While previous work has established that crises like the COVID-19 pandemic make people less optimistic about their future, no study has investigated future thinking during an ongoing war. In an online survey study, Ukrainian participants (n = 377) as well as German (n = 239) and Polish (n = 207) controls were asked to imagine both their personal future, and the future of their respective countries. Surprisingly, Ukrainians felt significantly more positive about the future of their country than Germans and Poles and had a stronger sense of being able to actively shape it. This remarkable wartime positivity effect was even stronger in participants who were more impacted by the war. Additionally, personal and collective future thinking were more merged in Ukraine than the control countries. The usual split of higher positivity about the personal compared to the collective future was reduced in Ukraine. Additionally, Ukrainians mentioned collective events and their country more often, even when discussing their personal future. The results indicate that under extreme circumstances, personal and collective future thinking can be more aligned, as the fate of the nation is more coupled with the fate of the individual, and more positive, as the adversity of war can also be seen as an opportunity for change.