Ukrainian schools have “Russification” of educational programs in occupied areas

When masked Russian soldiers ransacked Nina’s home in northeastern Ukraine at 6am one day in late April, they weren’t looking for weapons. In fact, they were looking for their Ukrainian schoolbooks.

Officers pointed guns at her daughter and husband, and the 48-year-old woman told CNN who knew they had come for him. As a school principal, she believes they saw her as an enemy.

“They were looking everywhere, even in the drains and outside toilets,” she explained. “They found Ukrainian language textbooks and tutorials.”

Nina is not alone. Ukrainian officials say educators in newly occupied areas are reporting increasing cases of intimidation, threats and pressure to adapt school programs to align with pro-Russian rhetoric.

As the war spreads across Ukraine, education has become a victim of the conflict – and a possible battleground in the struggle for control of the country.

Before Russian troops invaded on February 24, about 4.3 million students were enrolled in schools, according to data compiled by Ukraine’s Institute for Education Analysis, a state agency. Now millions of school-age children have been internally displaced or forced to flee the country with their families.

After searching her home, Nina said the soldiers – who forced her to speak Russian – “gave her a minute to get dressed and take her to school”.

She said her captors put a black cap on her head before throwing her in a vehicle and taking her to another location, where interrogation continued.

“They asked about my stance on the ‘military operation’, accused me of being too patriotic, too nationalistic,” she said. “They asked me why I use the Ukrainian language…why do I go to the Ukrainian church.”

Nina said they wanted to reopen the school and ensure the children returned, but she argued that it was not safe for either the students or the teachers.

Eventually she was released, but not before her captors “emphasized that they know about my son and reminding me that I have a daughter,” she said, adding that she “considered it a threat.”

Days later, fearful that Russian troops would return, Nina and her family fled.

Russian interference

Nina’s experience is not an isolated incident. Reports of threats against educators in newly occupied regions are growing as the conflict escalates.

A teacher told the CNN that Russian troops contacted the headmistress of her school and ordered her “to hand over all textbooks written in the Ukrainian language and on Ukrainian history, but the headmistress refused. Her positioning was so blunt that they somehow didn’t press further… they left empty handed.”

Some teachers have managed to resume remote classes, using virtual classrooms similar to those created during the coronavirus pandemic. But for others, lessons were cut short by corrupted internet services, and schools near conflict zones were forced to close.

At least 1,570 educational institutions have been destroyed or damaged by bombing since the invasion began, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s May 2 speech. The president’s statements have not been independently verified by the CNN .

Ukraine accused Russia of bombing a school in the Luhansk region on May 7, where 90 people were sheltering. Serhiy Hayday, head of the regional military administration in Luhansk, said the building was leveled in the attack. Sixty people may have died.

The country’s Education Ombudsman Serhii Horbachev told CNN that the government has received more than 100 complaints and requests for help from teachers, parents and students in occupied regions since February.

“Employees of educational institutions who remained in the occupations risk their own lives and health, [e] are subject to coercion, violence and pressure,” said Horbachev.

“There are known cases of abductions of heads of education authorities and school principals,” he added. “Teachers are forced to cooperate and work in schools under machine gun surveillance.”

“Russification” of occupied areas

Other examples of Russian forces trying to eradicate Ukrainian identity in occupied areas were seen in the southern Kherson region, according to Serhii Khlan, a representative of the regional council, who has repeatedly accused occupying officers of threatening educators in recent weeks.

Khlan said on Thursday that Russian forces were raiding villages and launching intensive searches, and also starting a census of those left in some locations. He also claims that the Russians have indicated that they “will import teachers from Crimea because our teachers do not agree to work with Russian programs. The few teachers who agreed to work, we know them personally, will be held criminally responsible for this.”

Khlan had previously warned that directors in the city of Kakhovka were being threatened in late April.

His latest remarks followed a report that a new headmaster had been installed by the “occupiers” at a Kakhovka school after the previous headmaster was kidnapped on May 11, according to a local journalist.

Efforts to force the Ukrainian education system into line with Russia’s school curricula mirror similar “Russification” efforts in areas taken over by Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists in previous years. Russian President Vladimir Putin – who has leveled accusations of widespread oppression against Russian speakers in Ukrainian regions and used them as one of the pretexts for the invasion – has made it clear in his public statements that he does not consider Ukraine a legitimate nation.

Oleh Okhredko is a veteran educator with more than two decades of teaching experience and an analyst at the Almenda Center for Civil Education, an organization initially based in Crimea that monitors education in occupied territories. he told the CNN which is a strategy he witnessed after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

“Crimea has become a testing ground for Russia. Here they started the militarization of education in general,” she explained.

He said Russian propaganda reviewing historical events was embedded in Crimea’s school curriculum, something he claims has a detrimental effect on children.

“Ukraine was completely taken out of textbooks and everything became the ‘history of Russia’,” Okhrendko mused. “Children in occupations are very influenced by being educated in a system that constantly needs to have an enemy. States and Ukraine. And this hostility begins to express itself in children in the form of aggression.”

He added: “Those kids who went to school six to eight years ago – when they were between 11 and 13 years old – are now fighting Ukraine. Citizens of Ukraine unfortunately fighting their own country.”

Ukrainian opposition

For now, many educators in occupied areas of Ukraine are trying to resist Russian attempts to adjust to their schedules, fearful of the long-term impact the changes could have on their students.

In the Luhansk region, Maria, a mathematics teacher and member of the regional school administration, told CNN that its members were given an ultimatum to teach using a Russian program. Maria was given a pseudonym to protect her identity.

“Clearly, we’ve told them we won’t do that. And they said ‘we’ll see, we have a card for each of you’. It’s scary,” he said, adding that they received Russian textbooks by email, with the request that ‘at least read them and then decide, because the program is very good.’

“They tried to persuade us. But we told them, we don’t have internet here and we haven’t received anything,” she explained.

“They even asked us ‘what’s the difference, why is it important to study in Ukrainian or Russian? You teach math, it’s the same in any language’. I was upset about it…and I told them that their education, their studies, are not recognized anywhere, children will not be able to attend universities. And they said, ‘Which universities? For what? We need workers and soldiers’”.

As the invasion of Ukraine continues, Maria remains frightened but hopeful.

“We are afraid that they will take equipment from the schools, we have a lot of good things in our school,” she said. “We are waiting, desperate for our army to come, we think it will happen soon.”