Lessons in war at Ukraine’s new underground school

Askold Krushelnycky sees Russian ballistic missiles strike Zaporizhzhia and speaks to teachers determined to find strength in education’ amid the terror wrought by Putin

- Askold Krushelnycky

At first glance, it is a wasteland. A barren plot of earth in a city caught up in some of the most vicious fighting between Russia and Ukraine. As missiles, drones and “glide bombs” terrorise the residents of Zaporizhzhia near the eastern front, it does not seem possible that any semblance of normal life can carry on.

But, seven metres underground, the earth has been hollowed out to create a fully fledged school for 1,000 pupils. With only discrete entrances and a ventilation unit above ground, students rotate through the reinforced bunker daily. The school, which has been open little more than a week, lies in one of the few parts of the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia that has not been occupied by the Kremlin’s forces since the first days of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion in February 2022.

As part of the original onslaught, the Russians seized Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and Putin exploited the facility, packed with Russian soldiers and tanks, as nuclear blackmail – his terrifying sword of Damocles hanging over the continent.

As 2025 began, the Zaporizhzhia region faced a brutal uptick in Moscow’s attacks. The eponymous capital has witnessed Russian ballistic missile strikes on the city. Yet its inhabitants remain unbowed and determined never to surrender. Shops and businesses remain open along its bustling avenues and Zaporizhzhia is a crucial industrial hub, producing steel, aluminium and other metals.

As night falls on the short winter days, lights sparkle along the seven miles of Sobornyi Prospekt, one of Europe’s longest streets. But the peaceful scene is illusory. On just one night over the past month, Moscow launched 400 air and ground attacks against Ukrainian military positions and population centres in the region, according to its governor, Ivan Fedorov.