The Ukrainian government says Russia has shelled more than 1,000 schools, destroying 95. Intentionally attacking schools and other civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Experts say wide-scale wreckage can be used as evidence of Russian intent, and to refute claims that schools were simply collateral damage.
The Ukrainian government says Russia has shelled more than 1,000 schools, destroying 95. On May 8, a bomb flattened a school in Zaporizhzhia which, like School No. 21 in Chernihiv, was being used a shelter. As many as 60 people were feared dead.
In Chernihiv alone, the city council said only seven of the city’s 35 schools were unscathed. Three were reduced to rubble. “It’s a tragedy for us ... It’s a tragedy for the children,” said school director Sergey But, standing outside the brick building shortly after the attack. Shards of broken glass and rubble were sprayed across the concrete, where smiling children once flew kites and posed for photos with friends.
They also shelled and destroyed schools in many nearby villages, she said. Kindergarten buildings were shattered by shrapnel and machine-gun fire. Syrian teacher Abdulkafi Alhambdo still thinks about the children’s drawings soaked in blood, littered across the floor of a schoolhouse in Aleppo. It had been attacked during the Civil War there in 2014. The teachers and children had been preparing for an art exhibit featuring student work depicting life during wartime.
Halilovic went to school in a cellar, as many Ukrainian children have done. Desperately chasing safety, the teachers and students moved from basement to basement, leaning chalkboards on chairs instead of hanging them walls. “When they see their school destroyed, do you know how many dreams have been destroyed? Do you think anybody would believe in peace and love and beauty when the place that taught them about these things has been destroyed?” he said.
The key for prosecutors, then, will be to show that there was a pattern by the Russians of targeting schools and other civilian buildings nationwide as a concerted military strategy, Bosco said.
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