The school will cooperate with the Russian occupation authorities, he told them, and will reopen for the new school year in September, teaching the Russian curriculum. “Ukraine has abandoned us and is not coming back, and now the Russians are making us offers. If we do not accept, they will send young people from Russia to run the school who will have no attachment to it. It’s better to stay here and try to take care of it,” he told the assembled staff, Halyna, the school’s longtime vice principal, recalled. He said: “About a third of the teachers agreed, but for me, I knew there was no way I was going to work for the Russians.” He told the manager he was going to quit. When she returned to school a few days later, the principal told her that all the school’s Ukrainian textbooks would be destroyed in the next few days, so if she wanted anything, she would have to take it home with her. Halina visited her classroom and filled a plastic bag with poems in Ukrainian written by her students, which were pinned to the walls. She also got her favorite potted plant. As he left the building, he could see workers removing posters of Ukrainian national heroes from the corridors. “Imagine, I worked in this school for more than 25 years. I left there, alone, holding a pot and a bag of poems, with tears streaming down my face,” she said, her voice breaking as she described the moment. A few days later, Halyna was denounced as a “traitor” at a parents’ meeting for dropping out of school. She was warned by former colleagues that others had branded her a pro-Ukraine agitator and was now on a watch list of Russia’s FSB spy agency. “I said, ‘I haven’t disturbed anywhere,’ but they told me there are already witnesses, already complaints,” he said. He fled to territory controlled by Ukraine. Halyna is not the teacher’s real name. the Guardian is not revealing her identity or the city in which her school is located for fear of reprisals against family members still living under occupation. But the basics of her labor history and background are corroborated by other sources, and hers is one of many stories emerging from the occupied territories that show that education policy is one of the most important pillars of Russia’s effort to understand pieces of Ukraine. The Kremlin hopes that by introducing the Russian curriculum into the areas it controls, it can mold a new generation of loyal subjects who will accept a Russocentric view of Ukrainian history. Children take part in a ceremony marking the start of classes at a school in Russian-occupied Mariupol. Photo: AP The Ukrainian curriculum was “aimed at turning you into an idiot,” said Kyrylo Stremousov, a former anti-vaccine blogger who became deputy governor of the Russian-occupied Kherson region. “The curriculum will change and kids will no longer be degraded and actually start learning,” he said in a phone interview. Many teachers have been reluctant to work for the Russians, and Ukrainian officials say there is a pattern of pressure and threats on those teachers who stayed behind to make the transition. “We have received hundreds of messages from the occupied territories,” said Sergei Gorbachev, Ukraine’s education ombudsman. “They force teachers to use the Russian curriculum, they bring Russian textbooks with the idea that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, full of Russian imperialism, it’s the complete package,” he said. Halyna said some people in her town were enthusiastically pro-Russian and always had been, but others agreed to cooperate out of pragmatism, echoing the principal’s belief that Russians were here to stay and that it was necessary to find a way to adapt. Gorbachev said it was not fair to judge the teachers who were put in an impossible position. “We have neither a moral nor a legal right to demand heroism from people living under occupation. Their main goals should be to save lives and not to cooperate voluntarily. If they are forced to cooperate, they should gather evidence that compels them,” he said. Others are less inclined to sympathize. Many Ukrainian officials are demanding long prison terms for anyone who agrees to cooperate with the Russian education system, citing the role of teachers in spreading the historical revisionism that partly fuels the Russian invasion. The recent surprise success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, as well as the attack on administrative buildings in the center of occupied Kherson with long-range Himars missiles on Friday, may lead to sleepless nights for teachers who agreed to work for the Russians. Students and staff take part in a flag raising ceremony in Nakhabino, Russia. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP In recent days, Ukrainian authorities claim to have arrested a group of teachers sent by Russia to the occupied Kharkiv region and left behind when the Russian army retreated. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the teachers would be tried by Ukrainian courts and could face up to 12 years in prison. Although it was not immediately possible to verify these reports, there is no doubt that Moscow has made plans to send Russian teachers to the occupied territories. Stremusov said Kherson authorities had no plans to send teachers from Russia, but claimed some Russian teachers “want to come and help us.” The occupation authorities in the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region said in late August that they expected 500 teachers to arrive from Russia. Part of their job is to “help” local teachers make the transition to the Russian curriculum, particularly for subjects like history, where the Russian curriculum will be vastly different from the Ukrainian one. In July, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta spoke to Yuri Baranov, a history teacher from the Perm region of the Urals who had applied for a transfer to Zaporizhia. “I have a personal dislike for Ukraine. Not for the people but for the state, which brainwashed its citizens for the last 30 years and taught them to hate Russians… We can’t destroy all Ukrainian Nazis, it’s not realistic, so we’ll have to solve the problem with other methods,” he said. He added that he hoped he and his wife would be given a house with a beautiful garden when they arrived. Halina said that no Russian teachers had yet arrived in her town, but there were persistent rumors that they might come soon. She had already received a phone call from a local official who told her that because she had left, her house would be commandeered and used for teachers or other Russian professionals expected to arrive in the coming days. The school opened for the new year on September 1, with about a third of the previous number of teachers and students and armed Russian soldiers standing guard outside. In an attempt to improve school attendance, the occupation authorities threatened parents that their children could be sent to orphanages if they did not enroll in the newly Russified school. There are also incentives. In the occupied Kherson region, the authorities announced a payment of 10,000 rubles (£143) in cash for each child registered for the school year. Meanwhile, Halyna, together with her colleagues who did not want to work for the Russians, created an online version of the school that continues to teach the Ukrainian curriculum, using the experience gained during the pandemic. Students and teachers who have left their hometown are connected from other regions of Ukraine and from abroad. Some parents who still live in the city contacted Halyna and arranged for their children to enter the online school in the afternoon, after they finished classes at the Russian school. “But they are very worried, the teachers have told the children that the police will come and check their computers and tablets to make sure they don’t secretly continue the Ukrainian school,” he said. The Russians appear so concerned about the continued spread of Ukrainian influence from the online school that the FSB arrested a relative of one of the teachers involved in the school and questioned him about the project. Russian forces have also raided the empty homes of the teachers involved, looking for “evidence” about the school, neighbors said. Halina said that with each passing week, the divisions between those who resist and those who cooperate are likely to deepen. “I just wait every day for our army to liberate the city. I hope it happens and I hope it happens soon,” he said.
