By Olha Chepil | 2024-06-24

KYIV -- Ukrainian cities near the front have turned to building underground schools to protect students from Russian strikes.

Ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it has routinely targeted schools, hospitals, houses of worship and other facilities protected by the Geneva Conventions.

From February 2022 through December 2023, Russian bombs and missiles damaged or destroyed 708 schools, including colleges and universities, The New York Times reported in June.

Ukraine's first underground school opened in Kharkiv in April.

The school was built inside the city's subway system, occupying five stations in order to accommodate 60 classrooms and more than 1,000 children. It has a diesel generator in case of power outages, and was built with safety in mind.

"There's ventilation in the underground school ... The kids are fed very well. They'll have three or four classes, and then they get hamburgers or hot dogs for free," Daria, a Kharkiv resident who declined to give her last name, told Kontur.

Both of Daria's children attended the underground school for several months in the past school year.

"The kids are so happy -- it's a chance to socialize, and on top of that, it's safe there," she said.

Children who live in Kharkiv can only take classes online or attend private schools that have shelters. Public schools have shut down because of constant shelling and a lack of safe shelters.

To accommodate demand, the underground school operates on two shifts, with pupils alternating days.

"My son was attending fourth grade twice a week, and then once every other week. It's fantastic that there are schools like this as the war is going on, but there aren't a lot of them. And of course, it's abnormal for kids to be forced to go to school underground," Daria said.

The "subway school," as the locals call it, is set to expand as new classrooms open at another station.

Another three underground schools will be built in the city by September 1, according to construction plans.

'A priority'

The underground schools are essential, say officials.

"This is a priority ... in Ukraine normal underground schools need to be opened in cities such as Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Dnipro and Odesa," Mykhailo Vynnytsky, Ukrainian deputy minister of education and science, said on United News May 15.

Construction of underground schools is starting across Ukraine, not only in Kharkiv but in five other provinces: Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy and Chernihiv.

The construction of the schools, which will be carried out with assistance from Lithuania, will begin "from scratch" in places that had no existing shelters, say officials.

The main objective is to have children return to the educational process, so they can interact with peers and teachers.

Online all the time

Some Zaporizhzhia children described the dismal all-online school experience.

"There's no basement in our school, so we don't go to school. We've been going to school remotely since the war started," Oksana Onoda, a ninth grader at Academic Lyceum no. 31 in Zaporizhzhia, told Kontur.

"My little brother, who's in fifth grade, also goes to school online. He doesn't have any friends; he doesn't socialize. All he has is a phone and a tablet -- those are his friends," Oksana said.

The lack of shelters makes it impossible to go to school in person. Some 40% of school-age children have left Zaporizhzhia city, according to the city council.

"I'm not leaving Zaporizhzhia because that's my parents' decision. I go to school online, though, and I'm a good student," Uliana Cheterius, Oksana's friend in the same grade, told Kontur.

"We're lucky that we always have online classes. But I'm tired of interacting with people only over the computer."

Studying amid air raids, shelling

More than 600,000 children in Ukraine attend school remotely, while almost 300,000 participate in hybrid learning. More than 2.7 million children go to school in person, the Institute of Educational Analytics said in April.

Therefore, more than a fourth of the children in Ukraine are losing out on a complete education because of Russia's bombing and other military activity, according to those statistics.

But in cities such as Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, not even online classes can always take place because of constant shelling.

As a result, teachers who are holding classes online often end up depending on parents to help out.

"I have two sons. In the morning they go to class online, but when there's an air raid siren all classes stop. There are sirens all the time but not learning," Yuliia, a mother of two living in Zaporizhzhia who declined to share her last name, told Kontur.

"The teachers say, 'A siren is going off. We have to stop. Parents, you finish up.' But we're not teachers. So in our house, learning is going on at a very low level," Yuliia said.

Ukraine has regressed on educational quality, socialization and children's psychological state since the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion, say analysts.

"School helps children with their emotional development, creating a behavior model that they'll later take into their adult lives. These days Ukrainian children have highly developed emotions of fear, hatred and aggression, and some of them have severe anxiety," Olena Ryhalska, a psychotherapist, told Kontur.

Learning, proper absorption of information and memorization can happen only in a normal, safe environment, Ryhalska said.