Children return to school in Ukraine’s Kharkiv as Russia bombards city

KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – As children across Ukraine return for the start of the academic year, in the country’s second largest city of Kharkiv they could only do so at an underground school amid Russian bombardment.

Kharkiv’s schools have been teaching children online since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Throughout the ensuing war, the northeastern city has been near the front lines of fighting.

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 of flowers 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.

While Kharkiv’s children were celebrating their first day of school, a Russian strike elsewhere in the city wounded 13 people. Another strike on Friday killed seven people and wounded dozens when a glide bomb hit a high-rise residential block.

“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.

(Reporting by Vitalii Hnidyi; writing by Max Hunder; editing by Mark Heinrich)