Non-Humane Russians Time Their Missiles to Hit The Schools When Kids Are Released

 

By Andrew E. Kramer

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Sept. 2, 2024

Updated 11:48 a.m. ET

Russia carried out its third large-scale bombardment of Ukraine in a week on Monday, with explosions ringing out early in the morning in Kyiv and several other cities after a volley of missiles was fired on the first day of the school year.

The attacks extended Russia’s terrorizing assaults on cities across Ukraine that began a week ago, even as it pushes forward with fierce attacks along the frontline in Ukraine’s East.

Ukraine has responded by launching drones at refineries and electrical plants in Russia, including one near Moscow on Sunday, causing fires and other damage. The Monday attack came around 5:30 a.m., after a countrywide air alert, and after a missile the night before had struck an orphanage in the northeastern city of Sumy, wounding two children and 11 adults, according to the city council and Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne.

The attack stood out for the number of ballistic missiles fired at Kyiv, said Serhiy Popko, the military administrator in Kyiv, but early reports suggested that casualties and damage were minor. 

The Air Force said it had shot down nine ballistic missiles but did not specify where, and that in total Russia had fired 58 missiles and one-way attack drones. Ballistic missiles pose a greater risk of breaking through air defenses as they fly much faster than cruise missiles.

The Russian attack prompted Poland, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to scramble fighter jets along its southeastern border, but there were no reports of missiles crossing into Polish airspace.

The bombardment came amid a rising tempo in the war on the ground and in the air. Near the threatened eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Russian troops attacked 63 times in the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s general staff said. In the air, Ukraine lost a prized Western-supplied F-16 fighter jet — one of only a half-dozen or so they possess — in a crash a week ago, amid the swirl of a major Russian drone and missile attacks.

Just hours after the explosions, children in Ukraine began returning to classes. In cities near the front, nearly all education takes place online, but many schools are open in Kyiv.

“My first fear was that Russians may target the educational institutions because it’s the beginning of the school year,” said Anna Pantyukhova, a mother of two boys, who are 11 and 14. The family waited out the air raid and “when it was over, I quickly got them ready, and they were glad to be going back to school,” she said. 

Nikita Deyev, 13 and in the ninth grade, said he spent the early morning in a bomb shelter, then got ready for school. “I had no doubt I would go, even though there were strikes in the morning,” he said.

Schools in Ukraine must provide bomb shelters for students or operate only online, under a law that came into force after Russia invaded the country in 2022.

Last year, only about half of Ukrainian school children had access to in-person education, with the remainder displaced by the war or enrolled at schools without bomb shelters.

Teachers escort children to the shelter, often the basement of a school, during air alerts. If an alert is in effect at the start of the school day, parents are asked to wait until it is over before dropping off their children. 

On Monday, the authorities announced an all-clear around 6:30 a.m., allowing schools to open nationwide for the first day of the school year, when children traditionally wear embroidered shirts and bring flowers for their teachers.

A police inspector used her phone to take a picture of a piece of debris that was placed next to a ruler. 

A police inspector in Kyiv photographed debris from a downed Russian missile. Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Mr. Popko, the military administrator, said that in addition to the ballistic missiles fired at Kyiv, Russia had fired more than 10 cruise missiles.

The cruise missiles, which are slower than ballistic missiles but can change direction during flight, maneuvered for about two hours before setting a course toward Kyiv, arriving simultaneously with the ballistic missiles, he said in a post on social media.

Debris from intercepts by antiaircraft missiles over the city fell in four districts, setting four cars on fire and damaging commercial buildings, Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said in a statement. Mr. Klitschko wrote that two people had been wounded.

The authorities also reported explosions in Kharkiv, not far from the Russian border in northeast Ukraine, following bombardments there on Friday and Sunday. 

The regional prosecutors said Monday that they had recovered wreckage of a type of North Korean missile, a Hwasong-11, from the site of one early morning strike in the city. The office said the identification was preliminary, based on an early examination of debris. The Ukrainian authorities have earlier reported finding debris from North Korean-made missiles in the city.

Before the attack on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that over the previous week Russia had fired more than 160 missiles of various types, 780 guided aerial bombs and 400 attack drones at Ukrainian targets.

Ukrainian officials have appealed to allies to allow the use of long-range weapons provided by the West, such as rockets and cruise missiles, to strike back at targets in Russia.

Ukraine’s military is stepping up strikes with domestically produced drones. On Sunday, Russia’s military claimed to have thwarted a major Ukrainian drone attack, but fires at refineries and power plants suggested that at least some had gotten through.

Maria Varenikova, Natalia Novosyolova and Anna Lukinova contributed reporting.