KRASNOHORIVKA, Ukraine — A heavily shelled, partially collapsed and burned three-story schoolhouse, its charred walls raked by deep scars from shrapnel, broods over the very center of Krasnohorivka, a Donbas frontline city of 15,000 residents located 560 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
No children study there anymore. Piles of broken desks, bookshelves, and torn textbooks decay in the cold autumn rain inside debris-strewn classrooms on the third floor: Their roofs have been blown away by shell blasts, or destroyed by fire.
With fighting having raged around Krasnohorivka for more than three years, the city’s civilian infrastructure is crumbling under the guns of attacking Russian-led forces. Three of the city’s five schools are either completely ruined or badly damaged by shelling.
About 1,300 students went to Krasnohorivka’s schools before the war, Now only 450 kids still live in the city. They attend the remaining two schools.
Public school No. 2, the one in the city center, was the latest one to be lost. Its building, built back in 1902, had escaped damage until late May. But then there was an escalation in the fighting in the area and the school was hit by a salvo of Grad rockets.
Dawn shelling
Early on May 28 a unit of Russian-led forces deployed on the western outskirts of the city of Donetsk, a Russian-occupied stronghold located less than 15 kilometers away, suddenly unleashed a fierce artillery barrage on the Krasnohorivka’s eastern residential districts.
“I remember hiding in the basement, starting from dawn,” says Olena Samoylova, a janitor at School No. 2. “As soon as the blasts died down somewhat, a rumor spread in the streets that the school I worked at was on fire.”
Fire had indeed taken hold in one of the school’s wings — in one part all three of its floors collapsed into the basement. As the fire spread, the roof of the wing was burnt to blackened timber beams.
Luckily, no children were hurt — the summer break had started just two days before the attack.
But the rocket barrage left eight civilians wounded, seriously damaged the city’s hospital, and broke water supply and drainage pipes. Later that day,
The remains of a destroyed public school in the war front city of Krasnohorivka, a Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk Oblast city of 15,000 residents some 560 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, on Oct. 11. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Ukraine’s military reported that the remains of at least 10 Grad missiles were found scattered in the town’s streets.
“After the firefighters eventually tackled the blaze, we decided to try to use the relatively intact part of the school,” Samoylova continues. “We cleared out the debris, taped up or boarded up all of the windows, and, helped by the children’s parents, blocked off all of the dangerous parts of the school. The kids had to start their new school year here, next to the ruins of the school wing.”
But just two weeks into the academic year, the school’s administration realized that it was too dangerous to continue using the damaged school. The children had to be sent to the two remaining schools in Krasnohorivka.
The bigger of the two, School No. 5, has now admitted most of the 450 children that remain in the city. The school is so overcrowded that the students have to study in three shifts — morning, afternoon, and evening.
That could change soon: School No. 2 could be repaired, with the regional government allocating some Hr 46 million ($1.7 million) to repairs, according to its principal, Olena Mykhatska.
“If it all goes well, we might start working in the coming weeks,” she said.
“If the war lets us.”
School shield
The situation around Krasnohorivka doesn’t inspire optimism, however. From the school’s scorched roof, short burst of machine gun fire can be clearly heard echoing from the east — the fighting around the city never seems to die down.
Before the war Krasnohorivka was a satellite town of the rapidly growing Donetsk, with over 15,000 residents. Barely 8,000 people still live there now, and for those who could not flee, life there is difficult.
Many residents rely heavily on humanitarian aid, as there are few jobs left in the area. Almost every weekend people line up to get free food and clothes from trucks sent by the Red Cross and other charities.
The town’s gas supply has been cut off for the last three years, and apartment buildings have no heating.
Many of those living in apartments had to leave their homes and seek shelter in private housing, while others use potbelly stoves to heat their apartments in the cold months.
In the worst affected part of the town, in the east, there is another heavily damaged and abandoned school, nicknamed “The Shield of Krasnohorivka” by locals.
The school, which is surprisingly large for such a small town, stands on the very outskirts, and indeed acts as a shield for several blocks of residential houses. Nevertheless, the residential blocks have not escaped damage, and only a few elderly women live there now.
“In 2015, when we were shelled almost day and night, this (school) building took a lot of the hits,” says the school’s supply manager, Nataliya Perevertai, gesturing to a number of meter-wide shell impact holes on the school’s eastern-facing walls.
The shells were fired from the Russian-occupied town of Staromykhailivka, about 2.5 kilometers due east.
The school’s shattered windows and wall holes provide views over a desolate landscape of abandoned farmland. The front line itself runs north-south, just a couple of kilometers away. The high-rise buildings of Russian-occupied Donetsk are visible on the horizon.
A handful of elderly janitors still guard their abandoned school, protecting it from looters. They grow pale when asked to take visitors to see the boarded-up school windows facing the combat zone — they are afraid of enemy snipers.
“This was a great school,” Perevertai says. “Of course, our kids won’t be back in these classes unless the war ends. But we’re still hoping and waiting. There’s always hope.”
