Voice of Ukraine

From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (556th day):

Yesterday kids in Ukraine started new academic year. To say that it will be another unusual year is to say nothing because having classes in bomb shelters while your city is being attacked by missiles and drones is not just unusual, it is unthinkable, yet it’s a reality.

Since ruzzian invazaion started 556 days ago 3,267 educational institutions in Ukraine were partially damaged by ruzzian bombing and shelling. Of them, 261 were completely destroyed.

But that’s just in the past 556 days of big invasion. Keep in mind the war started in 2014 and even back then on our humanitarian aid trips seeing ruined schools was heart-breaking. Here is the post I made Oct 10th, 2015:

“School, school yard, classroom, school library… Each one of us has own associations with these words, but I am sure the images that come to mind are very similar. Well, if you want to imagine a school in Peski, Donetsk region, throw your associations into trash! School yard is covered with pieces of missiles, shrapnel, broken glass, melted metal. In what used to be classrooms there no windows, walls and ceilings! In bent, disfigured, rusted pieces of metal you can recognize sometimes a desk or a chair… How do you get to the library? You don’t! From outside we see through a broken window on the second floor books on the windowsills and on bookshelves. We ask military who escort us to let us go up there. Today Peski is deafeningly quiet, it’s been a few days since shooting stopped. Our military escort is very generous with their permissions in response to our requests. But to enter the school through one of the doors or one of big wholes made by a missile is impossible. Everywhere we try we find mines. They are there, in plain view as if warning not to do anything stupid! We could possibly step over them and move on, but there could be more mines and trap wires that are not so visible. So our military escort refuses to go in and is not letting us in either. So we never did make it to the library… What we saw unfortunately doesn’t seem to surreal anymore, but seeing missiles on the school stairs, ruined beyond recognition classrooms, and blood-colored curtains flowing in the wind out of broken windows pierce your heart, to the tears, to the pain that makes you want to scream, to the defeating sense of hopelessness. I hate this war!”