Ukrainian children begin fifth wartime school year as Russian attacks on Kyiv intensify

Ukrainian families marked the start of a new school year on Tuesday against the backdrop of what CNN described as the longest and most intense aerial assault on Kyiv since the full-scale invasion began. According to a CNN tally, air raid alerts sounded 60 times in Kyiv between midnight Thursday and noon Tuesday — a span of roughly 47 hours — and local authorities reported at least 53 people killed and more than 100 injured in Kyiv and the surrounding region during that period.

At the Ukrainian Global School in Kyiv, administrators decided students would conduct all their classes in the basement rather than interrupt lessons each time a siren sounded. In a letter to parents, the school described the arrangement as removing the need to "run anywhere, interrupt classes, or wait for hours to resume learning." At Lyceum Obolon in the city's Obolon district, principal Yevhen Poliakov considered canceling the opening ceremony but proceeded after confirming the school's shelter was accessible; balloons floated in the schoolyard until an air raid alert sounded and the crowd dispersed, with children's laughter giving way to distant explosions, the Associated Press reported.

Ukraine's education minister, Andrii Butenko, said in August that of the country's general secondary schools, 8,424 would operate in person, 1,306 remotely, and 2,211 in a blended format — meaning nearly a third cannot open fully in person. The AP reported that 318 education facilities in Kyiv have been damaged since the start of the full-scale war, including 156 schools, some struck two to eight times. Russian attacks have also destroyed an estimated 1 million textbooks, according to the AP.