No need for language, burn Ukrainian literature. How children are taught in Russian-occupied villages
One of the main tasks of the Russian authorities in the occupied territories of Ukraine is to re-educate Ukrainian children, to forcibly make Russians out of them. Parents have no choice but to obtain Russian citizenship for themselves and their children, and to enroll their children in a pro-Russian school. The only alternative is to escape from the occupation. Maria, who managed to escape to Europe with her daughter, tells how children are forced to sing the Russian anthem at gunpoint and to study according to the Russian school curriculum.
For security reasons, names have been changed and some facts have been deliberately omitted.
In an occupation school, but with peers
The Ukrainian village where Maria and her daughter Oksana lived was occupied by the Russians at the very beginning of March 2022. The teenage girl was only able to return to school in September, when the occupation authorities restored education. But now, instead of the Ukrainian flag, she was “greeted” by the Russian one, the teachers were strangers. Maria understood where she was sending her child, she understood that the school would be taught in Russian. However, after six months of living under occupation, when her child was constantly at home, Maria still felt it was the best option for her daughter to return to school.
“My daughter loves to be with other children, to communicate with her peers. Not all parents let their children go to school. But mine wanted to go so much that it was impossible not to let her go,” explains Maria. She was worried that if Oksana was limited in contact with her peers, this would traumatise the child and she would have problems with communication in the future.
Maria reassured herself: even if the education was conducted according to Russian curricula and Russian-language textbooks, her daughter would feel comfortable communicating with peers whom she knew well. At least, that’s what Maria thought at first.
‘We stayed home because we didn’t know what awaited us’
Maria and her family heard about Russia’s attack on Ukraine on television on the morning of 24 February. Very soon, columns of heavy military equipment began moving through the village, on which Maria saw the letter Z. There was no actual fighting in the village, but the Russian army set up a base here in the first days of the invasion.
Russian soldiers with machine guns began to walk around the village and control the movement of local residents. “It was very scary. We were not allowed to walk around the village. And in the evenings, they started to turn off the electricity. For the first few weeks there was no water. It was good that snow was falling. We melted it and used it instead of water,” Maria recalls.
In April, fellow villagers began to leave their homes. Most people went towards the unoccupied territories of Ukraine – despite the fact that Russia was shelling them almost daily. Those who did not want to or, for various reasons, could not leave the occupation remained in the village.
“We stayed at home because we didn’t know what exactly was waiting for us out there. And in the village we had our own house, a basement, food supplies,” explains Maria.
Parents are not allowed, but military personnel with machine guns are
During the first months of the occupation, the school was closed. Later, Maria heard the Russians had set up a hospital for Russian soldiers at the school in the spring, because witnesses had seen a lot of bloody bandages around. It also turned out that the occupiers had looted the school, because all the computer equipment used in lessons had disappeared from the building.
In August, however, the occupation administration informed parents that the education system would be restored from September 2022. The occupiers hung Russian flags on the walls of the school and replaced almost all the teaching staff. The new teachers were locals or residents of neighbouring villages. But these were people who had nothing to do with pedagogy or education before the occupation.
Maria says parents were not allowed into the school. They were not even allowed to come to the first bell. At the entrance to the school, there was an armed guard appointed by the occupiers, who was supposed to make sure that no one except teachers and students came in. Every morning, he would check the children’s backpacks, explaining to them that, “we never know what you might bring in your backpack.” Oksana complained to her mother about this humiliating procedure. During breaks, soldiers with machine guns patrolled the school corridor.
“My daughter felt uncomfortable and scared. How could she walk around school with men with machine guns? Does this mean that parents aren’t allowed to enter the school, but you can walk around with machine guns?” the schoolgirl’s mother said indignantly.
‘Open the book, read and you will know’
Maria could only learn what was happening inside the school from her daughter. Oksana told her mother that children were forced to sing the Russian anthem before classes. They stopped teaching Ukrainian language and literature, to be replaced by Russian.
“I really didn’t like it when my daughter said that her classmates had begun to speak negatively about the Ukrainian language. They said: ‘Why do we need this language?’ My daughter didn’t understand this,” Maria says. “The same negativity came from the teachers. For example, they said that Ukrainian literature should be burned.”
The history of Ukraine was replaced by the history of Russia. My daughter was outraged that before Russia invaded, they talked about love for Ukraine at school, but now they were forced to glorify another country that had attacked them.
All the teaching took place in Russian. Maria was afraid that her daughter would forget Ukrainian, so she encouraged her to read Ukrainian-language books.
According to Maria, some of the new “teachers” at the school, instead of conducting a lesson, told the children: “Open the book, read and you will know.” In addition, Oksana told her mother that grades were given at random. And children who had previously been poor students suddenly became almost excellent students.
“Who is a teacher without an education? What knowledge could he give? They could not cover the topic of any lesson. The children did not do anything at school. In class, they had discussions mainly about how Ukraine did not give them anything,” Maria recalls.
Maria really wanted her daughter to develop. The occupiers sent schoolchildren to summer camps in Russia, where instead of resting, children were exposed to Russian propaganda. This ideological indoctrination of children was called “child development”. Oksana’s classmates went on similar trips. But Maria did not want to let her daughter go to Russia. With each month that went by she realised there was no future for her child under the occupation.
Give the child a future – leave the occupation
In the summer of 2023, the occupation administration gave parents a choice: in order for their child to be enrolled in school, the parents had to obtain a Russian passport and issue Russian documents for their child. But not sending the child to school was also impossible. The occupiers checked whether the children were going to school and whether they were attending a Ukrainian school online, since some children had continued secretly to study in Ukrainian educational institutions relocated to the free territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Representatives of the occupation special services went from house to house and threatened parents, demanding that they send their children to a Russian school.
Maria realised that there was only one option left – to take her daughter out of the occupation. In addition, the occupiers began to visit their home more and more often, suspecting the family of not hurrying to change their pro-Ukrainian position. Maria saw what was happening around her. She heard stories from fellow villagers about threats and detentions after such visits. She did not want to be next. Pressure from the special services and concern for her daughter’s future decided her to leave.
At the time, it was only possible to leave through Russian territory. Filtration was unavoidable. From the very beginning of the full-scale war, all Ukrainians wishing to leave the occupied territories or Russia for Europe had to go through it. During filtration, Russian special services harshly interrogate those wishing to leave, carefully check their personal devices and belongings. Ukrainians are afraid of filtration because they never know what the Russians might not like at the time of inspection. They are afraid of being detained and imprisoned. But Maria’s family still decided to take the risk – they passed all the checks and in mid-2023 crossed the Russian border with Europe.
They stayed with relatives in an EU country. Maria got a job, and her daughter went to a local school. According to her mother, Oksana does not yet know what she wants to become in the future, but she understands: if you want to succeed in life, you have to study well.
Both miss their home, but do not regret leaving.
“Here my daughter goes to a good school, to the swimming pool and to dance classes. But the most important thing is safety. This is what we left for. I didn’t want my child to see military equipment and these soldiers every day. I want my daughter to live in peace,” the mother explains.
Living in Europe, Oksana is not afraid to attach Ukrainian symbols to her backpack and go to school. Under occupation, you could be punished for this. But thanks to the move, Maria has managed to prevent the most important thing – the re-education of her daughter from a Ukrainian to a Russian.
This story was written in collaboration with The Reckoning Project, an initiative that brings together journalists, researchers, data scientists and legal experts to document war crimes, build legal cases, and combat disinformation by using reliable media outlets. The European Union has recently reinforced its support for The Reckoning Project.
According to The Reckoning Project’s legal team:
During periods of occupation, such as Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, children’s fundamental right to education is often undermined, in direct contravention of key international human rights conventions. The right to education, enshrined in numerous human rights treaties, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), guarantees access to quality, inclusive, culturally and linguistically sensitive education. However, under occupation, access to and availability of educational facilities is often severely compromised, in clear violation of these fundamental human rights instruments.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in particular Article 8, enshrines the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations. However, occupation poses a serious threat to this right, as children may be deprived of their cultural and educational heritage, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to maintain contact with their identity. According to the CRC, States parties must respect and protect the identity of the child, ensuring that they are not unlawfully separated from the elements that make up their identity. This goes beyond simply preserving identity in the historical sense; States are also obliged to take measures to enable children to explore and develop their identity in the context of ongoing events. The CRC also provides that if a child is deprived of his or her identity, the offending State, the Russian Federation in the case of Maria and her daughter, must take steps to restore it as quickly as possible.
Finally, the CRC emphasises the importance of children’s participation in matters that affect them. Under Article 12, States parties have an obligation to ensure that children who are capable of forming their own views have the right to express those views freely. This obligation includes establishing age-appropriate systems that allow these views to be expressed and developed constructively. In situations of occupation, when children’s access to education, family, and identity may be at risk, taking their views into account on these issues becomes even more important.
Authors: Lesya Pynyak, Natalia Frolova
The story was published by Delfi.lt
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