Family and daily life · War & Disasters · International · Youth & Education

Learning in the shadow of war

4 March 2026Photos and text: Fabrice Hebert35 images

01 / 35 · 4 March 2026Fabrice Hebert / Collectif DR

In Kyiv, power and heating cuts forced schools to close in the middle of winter. Empty classrooms, cold radiators, blackboards. In some schools, air-raid shelters are ready to receive students and teachers at the slightest alert. School has not disappeared; it continues in another form: keeping a rhythm, preserving a childhood, holding together.

In Chernihiv, near the Belarusian border, classes continue in underground shelters. Air-raid alerts sometimes interrupt lessons, but the school framework remains. Teachers also become emotional anchors for young people. School protects as much as it educates. In Kharkiv, some metro stations have been turned into temporary schools. Several meters underground, children attend classes while trains continue to run nearby. At the exits of the classrooms set up along the platforms, soldiers stand guard. In rural areas such as Kehychivka, schooling alternates between in-class attendance in the morning and distance learning. Learning constantly adapts to security and energy constraints.

Learning in the shadow of war means growing up with an early awareness of danger. It means doing homework while a siren wails in the distance. It means making messages for soldiers at the front by tracing the outline of one’s hand on a sheet of paper. Keeping education going has become a political act, a refusal to let war decide the future. For while the front line delineates a territory, education delineates a future.

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