Ukraine warns teachers not to collaborate with Moscow

UKRAINIAN teachers have been warned not to work in schools in Russia-controlled territory.

Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said yesterday that any who collaborate with Moscow will “ruin their careers”.

“Don’t work for the occupying forces,” Ms Vereshchuk said in an address to schoolteachers urging them to move to government-controlled land.

“There is going to be work for you here,” said Ms Vereshchuk. “If you start working for the occupying authorities, you will probably avoid criminal liability. But your career as teachers will be over.”

She also called on parents to make the difficult decision to move their children out of school if they lived in the one fifth of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia. “Don’t take your children to schools of the occupying forces. Do move to government-controlled territory. I know it’s tough. But the future is here with us. Your children are going to thank you later.”

In the southern city of Kherson, almost half the population has fled since the start of the war. But hundreds of thousands remain living under Moscow’s rule. Russian officials are now quite plain about planning to permanently seize large areas of Ukraine, and have drawn up plans for local schools to adopt the Russian curriculum.

However, in Kherson Ukrainian schoolteachers have refused to cooperate, according to governor Hennady Lahuta.

Just 20 teachers in a town of 71 schools attended a meeting called by Russian proxies in Kherson to discuss schooling. Mr Lahuta said that not a single principal in Kherson had agreed to send their staff to Crimea, where local teachers were supposed to do a training course on the Russian curriculum.