Ukraine has uncovered an underground school operating at a pro-Russian monastery in Kyiv, where children were taught using Soviet textbooks, shown Russian films, and taught Russian songs.
The facility is known for its particularly anti-Ukrainian stance, according to Andrii Kovaliov, spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to BBC News Ukraine, the monastery still commemorates Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, a prominent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Patriarch Kirill has de facto blessed Russian soldiers for the war against Ukraine.
The school did not have an official license
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has emphasized that the children were outside state oversight, which is a worrying factor.
The director referred to the institution as a “family club,” but in reality, it functioned as a school, with classes five days a week and an after-school program.
The school did not have an official license, and students’ records were kept at another school that issued state-standard diplomas. Minister of Education Oksen Lisovyi has called its existence a “direct threat to children and the state.”
“The very existence of an underground school in Kyiv that educates children in the spirit of the ‘Russian world' in the fourth year of a full-scale war is a situation that has no justification,” says Lisovyi.
In the capital of a country fighting for its very survival, such a thing is not merely unacceptable.
Classes used Soviet textbooks, including mathematics from the 1966 textbook “Arithmetic”, and the subject “Slavic Language” effectively taught Russian.
Investigation by the SBU and the Prosecutor's Office
A journalistic investigation by Slidstvo.Info has prompted the opening of a criminal case into the brainwashing school.
Investigators from the Main Department of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv and the Kyiv Oblast launched a pre-trial investigation under Part 1, Article 436-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the school’s creation and operation, including whether children attended state educational institutions and the sources of its funding. The pre-trial investigation is ongoing, and all verified facts will receive legal assessment.
Religious manipulation in the West
Earlier, Ukraine banned the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, supported by Putin, due to its direct ties to Russia. In response, Russia is promoting a narrative about the alleged "persecution of Christians in Ukraine" in the West.
Moscow spends significant resources on lobbyists who organize meetings of so-called “religious representatives of Russia” in the US Congress and the White House.
The goal is to create the impression that supporting Ukraine allegedly contradicts “American values,” despite the fact that military assistance enables Ukrainians to defend themselves against Russian aggression.
