We were going to have a lesson about favourite rooms.
But a boy of 10 came to tell me ‘a bomb’s destroyed my home’
THE time is 10.31am in central Kyiv and I am peoplewatching from my bedroom window at the start of yet another air raid alert. Far below me pedestrians are still strolling, in the complacent way they do after two years of a war that is mostly fought elsewhere, or else not fought at this time of day.
But it is always wrong to assume and, only seconds after the sirens have begun to wail, there is a succession of terrific explosions very close by.
A Zircon hypersonic cruise missile — Russia’s most advanced weapon — has been intercepted by Ukrainian air defence missiles over the heart of the metropolis, perhaps half a mile from my hotel.
The detonations galvanise the pedestrians below like the starter’s gun to an Olympic sprinter. They scatter and the streets are suddenly empty, as a chorus of car alarms triggered by the blasts competes with the sirens.
There was no time for anyone to reach the bomb shelters because the missile is so fast — an alleged top speed of Mach 9 (almost 6,000mph) — and was launched from occupied Crimea only a few hundred miles to the south. It arrived over Kyiv before the local air defences could give proper warning.
But even an intercepted missile causes chaos. The parts fall into the city centre, injuring nine. Social media will show CCTV footage from inside a bustling cafe as its windows were blown in and a cake stand collapsed. Another film shows a stream of children running terrified from their school to a shelter.
I find out later the attack is the first time the Kremlin has used a hypersonic missile against Ukraine in daylight, opening another grim chapter in this bleak war.
Over the past ten days, a resurgent Russia has increased the tempo of its missile strikes against targets behind Ukrainian frontlines, leaving the nation’s energy infrastructure severely damaged.
Kyiv, which was targeted by a
30- strong ballistic and cruise missile blitz on a single night last week, is once again a city that is sleep-deprived and under regular attack. Most hard hit, psychologically, are the children.
This week the Mail was given an insight into the strain that war has put on the school-age youngsters who remain here — and into the British-run programmes for Ukrainian teachers trying to help pupils cope.
FOR the past 90 years, the British Council has been promoting educational and cultural connections between the UK and the rest of the world. Since the Russian invasion, the Foreign Office - sponsored organisation has been more deeply engaged with Ukraine. As a British diplomat here told me: ‘One of the fronts of this hybrid war is the cultural one.’
This week, the British Council’s chief executive Scott McDonald paid an official visit to Kyiv, his first since the seismic events of February 2022, when Putin launched his full-scale invasion.
The Mail was invited to accompany McDonald, who carried with him a letter from Buckingham Palace, conveying the ‘heartfelt thanks’ and ‘warmest wishes’ of King Charles to the dozens of Council teachers and support staff who are working on the ground here. It proved to be an instructive trip in a number of respects.
Much of McDonald’s first night in the Ukrainian capital was spent sheltering in the British embassy’s bomb shelter, as the sirens wailed from 4am and the missiles rained down. That blitz was the ‘largest series of combined drone and missile strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the start of the full- scale invasion,’ according to the Institute for the Study of War, though this time the city of Kharkiv was the main urban target.
‘I got the full experience immediately,’ McDonald says wryly.
The following morning saw the weary British delegation meet a nervous, bleary-eyed city. The first and most moving appointment in the day’s schedule was a visit to Gymnasium 119 in the heart of Kyiv, a state school for seven to 17-year- olds that specialises in the teaching of foreign languages, particularly English.
Before the Russian invasion, the school had 550 children. Many were taken abroad as refugees or to other, safer parts of Ukraine. Now, there are only 300 on the roll-call, including 40 internally displaced youngsters and five teachers forced to leave frontline areas.
Today, a significant number have stayed at home and will study online, because of the long air-raid alert earlier in the morning.
Inside the school, you cannot escape the war. A corner of the lobby is a shrine to the (so far) four former pupils serving in Ukraine’s armed forces who have been killed since the war began.
The vast basement, a warren of interconnecting rooms, has been turned into a bomb shelter to accommodate the entire school.
Even fitted out with desks, whiteboards and WiFi, to have so many stressed children packed into such a small space without doors to separate classes, for as much as five hours a day, is not conducive to normal study.
‘The basement is about being safe and surviving,’ explains Nataliia Tokar, the deputy
principal. ‘It is not about learning.’ Trauma and disruption are facts of life now.
We are met by English language teachers from a number of schools who have graduated from the British Council’s ‘Teaching and Learning in Difficult Times’ programme. The course instructs educationalists on how to support and encourage pupils during the war; to identify trauma and not only offer comfort but make allowances for it.
Challenging and disruptive behaviour in the classroom has understandably increased since the war reached Kyiv. ‘ But a student is not simply “naughty”. He might be distressed,’ says Ms Tokar. ‘The course has taught us to recognise that.
‘I have a boy aged ten who came to me at the start of the day and said: “I don’t have a home now. It was destroyed in the bombing.”
‘So we have adjusted a project that was to be about “my room at home” to “the room of my dreams”. The boy has no home any more but he can still dream and that is so important for a child.
‘We also have a girl from Mariupol [the port city that was largely destroyed by a Russian siege] who now cannot stand loud noises. So, at break time, when the other kids are shouting, she puts on her headphones and sits in a safe corner. We have set aside specific rooms where pupils can spend time away from classmates if they need that space, or to talk quietly with someone.’
HALLOWEEN celebrations were also ‘adjusted’ to avoid causing distress to children who have experienced real horrors. Classes might pause for a quick yoga session to relieve tension.
Teachers also need help, as Anzhelika Buravenko, Vice Principal of School 219 in Kyiv, admits: ‘We all have children who have had bad experiences and challenging stories. But that also applies to colleagues.’
Galyna Zarytska, vice principal of School 85, recalls: ‘ When we went on the British Council course in Poland, a [civilian] plane passed over the venue and the gooseflesh rose on my arms. That is our reality. Some of our people began crying, going crazy in the assembly hall even though we are in a safe place. That is trauma.’
Katerina teaches ten and 11year-olds in Kyiv. She says: ‘Now, in the case of an air-raid alarm, it can take two to three hours to get to school. That causes anxiety, particularly crossing the bridges [over the wide Dnieper river].
‘By the time I get to school with my seven-year- old I’m already exhausted. But then I have a class of ten-year-olds who are relying on me, so I pull myself together, drink lots of coffee and put a smile on my face. Then the teaching day begins.’
A number of these teachers later attended a reception for the British Council at the UK embassy residence.
Ambassador Martin Harris, whose trip to Kharkiv scheduled for that day had been postponed due to the blitz, told the gathering: ‘Russia’s cruelty and violence against Ukraine has brought our two countries ever closer together. People in the UK have not only shown their support of Ukraine but have come to love and understand Ukraine.’
Meanwhile, the missiles continue to fall.