For students in frontline Zaporizhzhia, the sound of air raid sirens no longer means interrupting their lessons. Beneath the streets of Zaporizhzhia, a new type of classroom has emerged – one designed to withstand concrete-piercing missiles. This is Ukraine’s latest answer to Russia’s war: underground schools where children can finally meet face-to-face again.
The newly opened facility, Zaporizhzhia’s third underground school, transforms 1,309 square meters of bomb shelter into a space where 500 children can study simultaneously. Beyond traditional subjects, students learn skills crucial for life in a frontline city: robotics, drone operations, and tactical medicine.
“Children and teachers will be able to communicate with each other in classrooms, not through the screens of phones or tablets,” wrote Ivan Fedorov, head of Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration. The shelter, which can protect up to 1,000 people, is a lifeline for children from frontline areas and occupied territories where in-person education has become impossible.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Digital Transformation, and American historian Timothy Snyder visited the facility with a Ukrainian delegation.
“Russian missiles take about thirty-five seconds to hit the city. Given the nature of Russian occupation, Ukrainians are fighting not only for their lives but for a certain idea of life in freedom,” Snyder wrote while traveling by train to Zaporizhzhia. ”
The underground school includes features of any normal educational facility – a medical room, cafeteria, rest areas, and a sports corner. But its seven-meter depth and reinforced construction set it apart, designed to protect against drones, unmanned aerial systems, and even specialized missiles.
This is just the beginning. While Zaporizhzhia opened its first underground school in December 2024 after six months of construction, the city plans to build 21 such facilities in total. Nine are currently under construction, marking an unprecedented adaptation of civilian infrastructure to the realities of Russia’s invasion.
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