"They will continue in a reinforced-concrete bunker three stories underground, where Staryi Saltiv is digging its new school out of the earth. Similar schools are under construction across eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv, the largest city in the northeast, has seven major subterranean schools, and more are being built; the resources being poured into this effort testify to the grim expectation that such facilities will be in use for many years."
"Visiting them is an eerie experience: Aboveground, schoolyards and jungle gyms are empty and silent. Only when you descend two or three stories into the bunker do you hear the familiar shrieks and laughter of children. Russian drones have made a clear sky into a source of terror for Ukrainian young people. Most have taken instruction only by Zoom since the full-scale Russian invasion began, in 2022."
"The town gradually raised the money not just to reconstruct it but to enlarge and improve it, adding new facilities for disabled children. Then, just days after the work was completed in early May, the Russians sent five Shahed drones into it, leaving it a burned-out ruin. "We don't know why," Iryna Glazunova, the town's director of education and culture, told me."
Staryi Saltiv's district school was leveled by Russian missiles in early 2022, rebuilt and improved with new facilities for disabled children, and then destroyed again by five Shahed drones days after completion. The town displays a banner reading WE WILL CONTINUE ANYWAY and is constructing a new school three stories underground in a reinforced-concrete bunker. Similar subterranean schools are being built across eastern Ukraine, including seven major ones in Kharkiv, reflecting expectations that such shelters will be needed for years. Aboveground schoolyards are silent; children study mostly by Zoom and face isolation, interruptions, and anxiety. Russian drones have turned clear skies into sources of terror.
Read at The Atlantic
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