The mayor of Kharkiv announced that the city, located in eastern Ukraine, will construct the country's first fully underground school to protect students from repeated Russian bomb and missile attacks. Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the messaging app Telegram, "Such a shelter will allow thousands of Kharkiv children to continue their direct education safely even amid missile threats."
While many schools in frontline areas have had to resort to remote teaching during the war, Kharkiv has set up about 60 separate classrooms in metro stations before the academic year began on September 1, providing space for over 1,000 students.
Parts of Kharkiv are less than 35 kilometers from the Russian border and have faced near-daily missile attacks. The ongoing war has resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions of civilians. The Ukrainian Ministry of Education states that 363 educational institutions have been destroyed, and nearly 3,800 have been damaged across the country. It remains unclear the size of the new school or when it will open.
