Thursday morning Ukrainian Children returned to school, is it too soon, or necessary? Ukraine has been at war for almost seven months and Russia has seemed to regress in its pursuit to control the neighboring country. The now mangled and scarred country has decided to place its children back in school remotely no longer halting their educational journey. School No 2 located in Borodianka, a town two just north of Kyiv will not have in-person classes due to vandalization and violation of the building. Russian soldiers invaded school No 2 in March, wrecking computers, and equipment and needlessly trashing classrooms while tagging anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia doctrine in hallways.
Their first day of school entailed speeches, a recital of the Ukrainian national anthem with traditional white scrunches for girls and white shirts for boys. Borodianka like many other villages and towns in north Ukraine experienced a month of Russian occupation. enduring shelling, executions, and torture in the very streets they call their home. Apartment blocks were flattened when Russian planes dropped heavy bombs in March, killing most residents. This Traumatic experience affected the lives of all Ukrainians in the north.
Though the Russian assailants have since left and with Ukraine getting the upper hand in the war, Scars in the communities remain. Most children jump at the sound of cars, in fear that another wave of violence and desolation will infest their homes. Their paranoia and trauma will live with them for decades to come. To lose a home, a friend, a father, a mother, or a child is tragic. War steals these things from people, rewiring everything they knew, their whole life changed forever. How can a person be comfortable with taking another life, pillaging and destroying a country?
The answer is their leadership, Vladimir Putin is a man of power with no regard for anything but the posterity of his power, he is a man that has sat in office past his term, waged war on a neighboring country, and disregarded the effect it would have on his citizens. A radical man can lead young men with no trajectory and guidance on a path of destruction and no return. This is why it is important that these Ukrainian children returning to school learn for the betterment of mankind so that radical ideology becomes extinct.
Opinion News by Mikal Eggleston
Edited by Sheena Robertson
Sources:
The Guardian: Children return to Ukrainian school trashed by occupying Russian forces; by Isobel Koshiw
CNN: Live Television
Featured Image by Slavyansk Courtesy of EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid’s Flickr – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Veni’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
