Students at the Ukrainian Global School in Kyiv arrived for their first day of classes on Tuesday only to head directly into the basement. With Russian forces maintaining a near-constant barrage of aerial attacks on the capital, the school determined that moving students to shelters during frequent air raid sirens was no longer sustainable. Instead, the institution has shifted its operations underground, where classes will continue regardless of external threats.
In a letter to parents and guardians, the school described the shift as a necessary adaptation, framing the move as taking education “to a whole new level.” The administration noted that this “significant change” ensures that during an air raid alert, there is no longer a need to interrupt lessons or wait for hours in hallways, as the children remain in a secure environment where learning can proceed uninterrupted.
The intensity of the current aerial campaign is unprecedented. Between midnight last Thursday and noon on Tuesday, Kyiv experienced 60 air raid alerts, totaling approximately 47 hours of warnings. Local authorities report that at least 53 people have been killed and over 100 injured in the city and surrounding region during this period. Russia’s strategy has evolved since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, with a recent shift toward continuous, day-and-night attacks using high-speed, jet-powered drones that are significantly harder for Ukrainian air defenses to intercept than earlier models.
For many Ukrainian children, the concept of a normal school year is largely unknown. Students entering the eighth grade are the youngest to have experienced uninterrupted, pre-pandemic schooling, while those in fifth grade or lower have never attended school during peacetime. To manage these risks, the Kyiv City office has urged parents to treat safety drills as a standard part of school preparation, comparable to packing a bag or wearing a uniform.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a school in Kyiv to mark the start of the academic year, though the event was forced into a shelter due to an active air raid alert. “There is an air raid alert right now. Unfortunately, the Russians are despicable… even among enemies, there is usually an understanding that children are children,” the president told reporters.
The human toll of the ongoing conflict is increasingly visible in the nation’s classrooms. UNICEF estimates that more than 1.8 million children are currently living abroad, and many others remain internally displaced, leading to a sharp rise in empty desks. Ministry of Education data shows that 243,398 first-graders enrolled this year, a significant decline from the 400,000 who started in 2021.
For families like that of Nadiia Andrianova, the security situation has become untenable. After noticing a decline in safety throughout the spring of 2025, Andrianova found that the frequent nights spent in the Kyiv Metro for protection left her unable to function normally. Following a harrowing night where her family had to huddle in a corridor while listening to explosions every 20 seconds, she decided to relocate her nine-year-old daughter, Aiia, to western Ukraine. Although Aiia was initially reluctant to leave her friends and teachers, the constant threat of ballistic missile strikes forced the family to seek a safer environment. The report also notes that air raid alerts went off 60 times in Kyiv between midnight on Thursday and noon on Tuesday, lasting around 47 hours in total, according to a tally. The report also notes that but its campaign of aerial terror against Ukrainian civilians intensified at the beginning of last year, when Mosc, russia has been bombing Ukrainian cities since the opening salvos of the full-scale war in February 2022. The report also notes that which means that children starting eighth grade on Tuesday are the youngest Ukrainians to have experienced, russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine just as the world began to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. The report also notes that when it was easier to avoid Ukrainian air defenses, moscow used to launch these massive attacks mostly overnight.
