 "Schoolgirls sing the national anthem on the first day at school in a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. - AP")
As the new academic year commences, children in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, attended classes in an underground school due to relentless Russian bombardment.
Despite the challenging situation, students in Kharkiv celebrated the first day of school, a stark contrast to the violence unfolding elsewhere in the city. A Russian strike on the same day injured 13 people. At the same time, another attack on Friday resulted in seven fatalities and dozens of injuries when a glide bomb struck a residential high-rise building.
Kharkiv’s schools have been teaching children online since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The northeastern city has been near the front lines of fighting throughout the ensuing war.
Only one Kharkiv school, purpose-built in May 2024 in an underground metro station, offers in-person lessons.
On Monday, it held the traditional first day of school festivities that are commonplace in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, with parents bringing bouquets and children arriving in their best clothes.
”We brought them here because we thought it is safe and our children won’t be afraid of missiles and strikes,” said Tetiana Hubina, a mother of a first-year student starting school.
”They will be safe here,” she said.
Wide swathes of Kharkiv, whose population is around 1.3 million, were devastated by heavy shelling in 2022 as Russian forces bore down on the city. Although Ukraine managed to beat that assault back, Kharkiv remains just 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border and is regularly struck by bombs and missiles.
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More Shorts”We are more worried about the time that we spend at home. It was not quiet recently in the area where we live,” said Alina Patrusheva, a mother of one of the children at the underground school.
After more than 900 days of war, Russia and Ukraine show no sign of letting up in the fight or moving closer to the negotiating table. Both sides are pursuing ambitious ground offensives, with the Ukrainians driving into Russia’s Kursk region and the Russians pushing deeper into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine which is part of the industrial Donbas region.
With inputs from agencies.