Ukraine has sustained almost 2,000 attacks on education since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022, with some 270 this year alone, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced on Tuesday — one day after a strike on a school in the Zaporizhzhia region reportedly killed at least 29 civilians.

Since the start of the academic year and up to 20 October, children have experienced an average of 34 hours of air raid alarms during school time, equivalent to more than 13 per cent of scheduled learning, according to UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires. In some regions, alerts have exceeded 60 hours. In Kyiv alone, air raid alarms rose from 12 in September 2025 to 71 in September 2026.

In the Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Kharkiv regions, children have experienced more than 60 hours of school-time alarms — approximately one quarter of scheduled learning hours — affecting more than 560,000 children.

Monday's attack struck a school and shelter in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region, where the majority of victims were residents who had gathered to collect aid and employees of the local administration, said Matthias Schmale, the UN's Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine. Subsequent strikes at the same location killed two rescuers and four police staff who had responded to the first attack, Schmale added, noting that nearly 50 people remain missing.

Pires shared the testimony of 15-year-old Katia from the Mykolaiv region, who said: "I've just returned to in-person school; however, we still spend most of our school day in a shelter because of air raids." Recalling a visit a month prior, Pires described speaking with children who must learn underground because it is not safe to be above ground, and noted that older students in particular expressed significant anxiety and said they were unable to fully concentrate.

Maysa Jabout, head of the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait, said the impact of war on children has forced the fund to prioritise psychosocial counselling, diverting what she called "essential money that we need for teaching and learning in order to support children's ability to cope with learning in very difficult circumstances."

This article is based on a primary source and has undergone editorial review prior to publication.