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Mikolaiv Region (Ukraine) (AFP) – A few kilometers from the southern front, in the Mikolaiv region, the ruins of a school embody the destruction inflicted by Russia on Ukrainian education. A few stuffed animals lie on the floor, and small desks are littered with debris.
The facade of the building has been ripped off. At the rear, the roof has disappeared and a wall has collapsed, revealing the remains of a gym. Around him, the charred remains of vehicles behold abandoned playgrounds.
The Russian army passed through the village at the beginning of the war without stopping, and then withdrew in early March leaving it untouched, said Serguei, 51, head of the municipal council, contacted by telephone by AFP in Mikolaiv, where he currently lives.
But once Ukrainian troops took up positions there, “the Russians realized their mistake and bombed everything,” he added.
Here the roofs were largely blown off, only 25 of the 1,700 inhabitants remained, according to Sergei. During the day, the streets are deserted, while the artillery thunders on both sides. Ukraine recently launched a counteroffensive in the south, the results of which are still difficult to assess.
On Thursday, a powerful projectile crashed into a vacant lot in the town. The five-meter-deep crater is proof of the power of the “Russian gift,” Lieutenant Andrei Gruchelsky quipped.
“The bomb must have weighed at least a ton. Thank God it fell 20 meters from our camp!” he smiles. “If not, I wouldn’t be here to talk to you.”
About the school he said: “at the beginning of the war it was very beautiful. But day after day, bomb after bomb, we see what it has become.”
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Serguei remembers with emotion the school where 190 minors studied, from kindergarten to high school. His wife ran the computer lab, his eldest son did high school there and the youngest had not yet attended.
“We put so much time and effort into making the school the best it could be. The classrooms were magnificent. Our dining room was even better than other places,” she lamented.
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Inside there are letters painted on the wall with drawings: “A” for bus, “T” for tractor… But in the rest of the room there are overturned furniture, books lying on the floor. Outside, an abandoned children’s house.
“The Russians deliberately attacked the school. I hate them,” Sergei said.
In the neighboring town, where eight civilians have been killed in seven months of war, according to local authorities, a mortar shell exploded in front of a brick school, blowing out many windows.
“My soul comes out of my body when I see all this destruction. They not only take away our schools, but also the future of our children,” says Alla Kovalenko, whose son recently finished high school there.
He shows it on his phone during his school prom last summer, when he was waltzing with his girlfriend in his best suit.
At the site where the party was held, the stairway now has holes from the blast. The remains of the missile were neatly stacked on a step.
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“If I could, I would take Russian soldiers and cut them millimeter by millimeter,” Kovalenko said.
According to UNESCO, which cites the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, 291 schools have been destroyed since the beginning of the Russian invasion and 2,551 have been damaged.
The Director General of UNESCO regularly calls for “an end to the attacks against schools, teachers and students”, but the reality on the ground shows that she is not being heard.
Ukraine, because schools do not have enough shelter, because they are in disputed territory… or because parents are afraid to send their children, 40% of students started the school year online, according to the Ministry of Education.
© 2022 AFP