In the evening of March 1, 2022, enemy aircraft flew over Borodianka, near Kyiv. “It flew above us, and then a dull thud, and the whole ground jumps. We understood that the russians were dropping bombs on us! And I threw myself over my son in the basement. I say: “Don’t be afraid, just don’t be afraid!” This is how Olena Kovalenko, principal of the Borodianka Academic Lyceum, recalls the beginning of the war. On the eve of the invasion, the educator intuitively sensed: “Something is coming.” Because she had already seen people who had come from places where the war began back in 2014. She was preparing for the worst — stocking up both at home and at school. “At school, we cleared out the basement and stocked up on food, dry biscuits,” the principal recalls. And on the very first day of the war, the teachers hid the class registers and personal files containing information such as parents’ employment details, contacts, and addresses. “I was afraid that the enemy might get hold of information about people connected to the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” says Ms. Olena.

The first to come to the school’s shelter were displaced persons from Donbas: “Gradually, the shelter started to fill up with people. Families arrived who had already gone through relocation in 2014. They knew exactly what to expect. We didn’t understand yet, but they were already setting up sleeping places.”

A few days later, huge columns of Russian military equipment entered Borodianka. “We ran out of the school… The tanks were already coming!” the woman recalls. That was when she narrowly escaped a “clearing operation.” “That’s when they drive down the street in an infantry fighting vehicle and just shoot from a machine gun in all directions… I was running down my street, and it was being raked with gunfire…” But the most terrifying were the russian airstrikes. Unfortunately, not everyone survived.  When Olena returned from evacuation, she received tragic news. A student, Oleksandr, had died under Russian bombs along with his parents. “Oleksandr’s older sister brought a copy of his documents and his textbooks,” the teacher recalls. “She said: ‘Maybe other children will need them.’ The textbooks are intact — they were in the apartment, which wasn’t damaged. But Oleksandr and his parents went to hide in the basement. They all died,” the principal says with sorrow.