As Ukrainian students entered classrooms on September 1, 2026, for the start of the new academic year, repeated air raid alerts in Kyiv and other regions disrupted classes and sent children and teachers into cramped underground shelters for hours at a time, according to local reports.
### Air Raid Alerts and Shelter Classes Disrupted by Continuous Strikes
The challenges facing educators and students were underscored on September 3, when Olya’s daughter managed to complete just a single math lesson before an air raid alert forced her fourth-grade class into an underground shelter, as documented by the Associated Press.
“The shelter is not equipped for studying,” Olya told reporters, sharing photographs of children squeezed together underground. “Even if they wanted to continue classes, they wouldn’t be able to. It’s too noisy.”
With air raid alerts sounding in Kyiv up to 10 times a day—sometimes stretching past five hours—other subjects were relegated to homework. When alerts ended, students rushed back to classrooms to make up lost lesson time, missing out on standard breaks. According to a CNN tally, air raid alerts rang out 60 times in Kyiv between midnight Thursday and noon Tuesday, lasting approximately 47 hours total during an intense aerial barrage that local authorities said left at least 53 people dead and more than 100 injured in the capital and surrounding region.
Other schools adapted by moving classrooms directly into basements to avoid constant movement. At the Ukrainian Global School in Kyiv, administrators informed parents that students would head straight to the basement upon arrival to maintain continuous learning without repeated interruptions. Meanwhile, schools like Lyceum Obolon utilized on-site shelters and national education tools like the Mriia portal to maintain hybrid learning options, according to principal Yevhen Poliakov.
### Infrastructure Damage and Textbook Losses Compound Academic Strain
The disruption to the school year compounds years of war that have taken a heavy toll on Ukrainian youth. According to city authorities cited by the Associated Press, 314 educational facilities have been damaged in Kyiv alone since February 2022, including at least 107 in 2026. Certain facilities have faced multiple strikes, forcing shifts to online learning and leaving first-grade enrollment in Kyiv roughly 40% lower than it was at the start of the full-scale invasion in September 2022.
Attacks have also struck supply chains outside the classroom. Summer strikes targeting printing and logistics facilities destroyed nearly 1.2 million textbooks—roughly 9 percent of the print run slated for the 2026-2027 academic year.
Families and municipal officials are also preparing for potential energy grid challenges. Threatening statements from the Russian government regarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure echo the severe blackouts and heating outages seen during the 2025-2026 winter, which forced temporary school closures. In response, institutions are upgrading shelters and stocking supplies like firewood ahead of the coming months.
