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Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine has left scores of schools bombed, kindergartens have been damaged or destroyed, and ongoing Russian air raids have seen shelters hastily converted into makeshift classrooms. The ongoing hardships faced by Ukrainian children and their hard-working teachers have been documented by a former RAF reservist turned charity fundraiser who recently toured schools in and around war-torn suburbs of Kyiv to see the devastation first-hand.

Robin Jowitt travelled on his own to Kyiv in January as part of a bid to raise money for school children amid fears the war is having a devastating affected on their education and mental health.

The former Flight Officer in the RAF reserves from Teddington in West London told Express.co.uk: “At all schools, there are regular electricity cuts, up to four hours a day, sometimes unscheduled. At half the schools I visited, there was an electricity cut during the visit.

“Then, to make things even more difficult for the pupils, during visits to three schools, there were missile alarms, so we all went to the bunkers.”

Stepping foot inside one of the bomb shelters, Mr Jowitt was alarmed at the conditions facing the young pupils who can be left to sit through the air raids without electricity or heating.

He described how power cuts leave the children forced to use torches while the heating can also be shut off leaving the bunkers to get extremely cold.

Mr Jowitt told Express.co.uk: “I worry for the children, if they were stuck in there without electricity, they would have to just use torches, other ones were very cold.

“Depending on how long the air raid sirens are on they can be down there for hours at a time. The children often looked cold and sat with hats and coats on their heads in a bid to keep warm.”

Putin’s forces have been mounting regular attacks on Ukraine’s energy supply, targeting the country’s power infrastructure with waves of missiles and drones since October.

These actions are aimed at causing widespread blackouts and enveloping the entire nation in darkness and cold, especially during the winter months when temperatures drop far below freezing.  

As a result of these assaults, millions of Ukrainian schoolchildren now experience power outages as a normal part of school life.

Mr Jowitt, a former school governor, fears for the long-term impact on these children who have seen their education turned upside down.

The grandfather added: “Every time I saw kids in a bunker I thought of the disruption in their education because they will suddenly have to go from class with their whiteboards and all the rest of it to suddenly sheltering in these bunkers with torches, sometimes in the cold and dark.

Ukraine school children prepare for threat of Russian invasion

“I have got grandchildren as well, so I cannot help me feel for these poor kids, the disruption to their education is a real concern and this can happen three or four times a day.”

Russia’s ill-fated attempt to take Kyiv in the early stages of the war brought devastation to large swathes of the capital’s suburbs and surrounding towns in war.

Ukrainian counter-attacks eventually managed to drive Russian troops back over the border into Belarus but not before the indiscriminate shelling and widespread looting had taken a brutal toll on civilian residents.

In Buzova, a village near the capital Kyiv, the local school was destroyed in a missile strike which destroyed three classrooms and left the building a burnt-out shell.

The children who attended the school have been forced to merge with a neighbouring kindergarten school while many parents simply decided to take kids out and flee abroad.

Meanwhile, in nearby Makariv and Borodyanka, around 50 kilometres West of Kyiv, the schools themselves become temporary Russian bases from which troops terrorized the local communities.

Although the Russians did not over-run the school in Buzova, the homes of some pupils were occupied with many of the children and their families left carrying horrific physical and mental scars. 

Mr Jowitt said: “Some terrible things happened in the areas surrounding these three schools.

“It makes me sick to think about fathers who were killed, mothers raped and five children are still missing.

“Also, one 13-year-old girl was so badly treated that she is traumatised and unable to go to school.”

Bombed-out apartment blocks and ransacked homes still line the routes many children take to school daily.

Mr Jowit said: “In Makariv, the kindergarten school was blown up, luckily when the children were not there.

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“Can you imagine how the children feel, seeing their kindergarten school in bits.

He continued: “These children are walking past every day and each building could be somewhere a family member died or perhaps a mate of theirs was killed.

“Now they might not show that pain openly but you can tell when something isn’t right, a teacher, a parent we can always tell when something is wrong below the surface, and these children are suffering.”

Reflecting back on the children and teachers he visited, Mr Jowit told Express.co.uk: “I don’t often get emotional but what I witnessed, of what these children and their teachers have been through really has moved me.”

Amidst the destruction and hardships of the warzone, Mr Jobwit expressed admiration for the Ukrainian teacher he met, and their resolve to keep calm and carry on despite everything.

Mr Jowitt added: “The heroes are the teachers. The teachers are fantastic some of them have husbands who have already been killed, some have loved ones who are still fighting and they don’t know what their fate will be.

“The man who showed me around has a son who has been missing for two months and they still don’t know where he is.

“So those people, the teachers are the real heroes through all of this they seem to keep calm, they dedicated seems to be with the kids.”

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