Instead of a morning bell − the roar of aerial bombs, instead of blooming greenhouses − scorched earth, and in the place where children studied history, there is now a huge crater that has become an open wound in the very heart of Osoivka.
This is a story about a modern educational hub that the enemy tried to erase from the face of the earth, but could not tear from people’s souls. The story of a lyceum that turned into ruins, but continues to live «in the cloud» for the sake of each of the fifty-eight students who wait every day for the voice of their teacher.
Osoivka Lyceum in Sumy Region has always been something more than just an educational institution. Located in the Krasnopillia community, only 10−12 kilometers from the enemy border, it was a real hub. The lyceum brought together over 140 children from the surrounding villages − Osoivka, Velykyi Prykil, and Mala Rybytsia.
Oleksandra Bondar: a life dedicated to her native school
Oleksandra Hryhorivna was born in the neighboring village of Hnylytsia. Her childhood was spent here, she graduated from school here, and after studying at a pedagogical institute, she returned to work in her native community. She worked as a history teacher. Since 2004, she has headed the Osoivka Lyceum. «I’ve been in this school my whole life», − she says. Before the war, her days were orderly and full of meaning: lessons, staff meetings, and a special ritual − conversations about literature. Together with her older sister, who lives in Konotop, they created their own «family book club». Her sister would be the first to read a classic work, tell Oleksandra about it, and then they would discuss what they had read for hours. This love for the classics and family warmth were that quiet world that the war destroyed in an instant.
The morning of February 24: a halted trip
The war broke into the life of Osoivka at four in the morning with the first muffled explosions. Oleksandra Hryhorivna recalls how anxiety instantly displaced sleep. The first thing the principal thought about was the safety of the children.
«I call the driver, and he calls me at the same time. He asks: «What should I do?». And he already has a waybill issued for this day − February 24», − she recalls.
According to the schedule, the bus was supposed to leave at dawn to reach the most remote point − the village of Velykyi Prykil. There, children were already packing their backpacks, preparing for school. Further, the route lay through Mala Rybytsia and the entire Osoivka. In 1972, Osoivka merged with the neighboring Tymofiivka, making the village stretch for a long 9 kilometers. The route was timed to the minute to manage to pick up the children.
However, that morning the principal gave a command that changed the history of the lyceum forever: «Wait, nobody is going anywhere. We are staying at home».
The driver still carefully keeps this waybill from February 24. The yellowed piece of paper has become for him and the entire staff not just a document, but a silent witness to that moment when time stopped for the school, and the familiar hum of the bus changed to the roar of enemy missiles. At the start of the invasion, there were 140 students and 18 kindergarten children in the lyceum, and the staff included 25 teachers and 18 staff members. In the very first hours, the school turned from an educational institution into a shelter, taking in those who were afraid to stay in their own homes.
February — March 2022: the roar of equipment and the «language» marker
The first days of the full-scale invasion in Osoivka turned into an endless hum. A huge amount of enemy equipment passed through the village − over 200 units in just one day. These were tanks, APCs, and covered trucks from which soldiers were looking out. The columns moved along the road that lay between the villages of Turia and Uhroidy, and headed towards Sumy. Although there were not always flags on the vehicles, the residents of Osoivka instantly understood who was in front of them. Oleksandra Hryhorivna recalls that language became the main marker. Despite the fact that she tried not to go far from her yard and not engage in direct contact, the Russian language of the occupiers, heard by fellow villagers, left no doubt: the enemy had entered the village.
Some units of the occupiers wandered: up to a dozen vehicles drove past the principal’s windows, which at first turned not towards Sumy but towards Myropillia, but later realized the mistake and turned back. Due to poor driving, the Russians even knocked down an electric pole near the school.
One of the first strikes that shook the village was the shelling at the entrance from the direction of Uhroidy. There was an old collective farm warehouse for pesticides and herbicides. The occupiers smashed it completely − whether trying to sow panic or hoping that poisonous substances would rise into the air and poison everything around. Fortunately, the warehouse at that time was practically inactive, but the sound of that explosion, which rang out very close by, the residents of Osoivka remember to this day.
Missiles flew over the village practically every day. «We saw them in the sky, and it was extremely disturbing», − recalls Oleksandra Hryhorivna.
While a continuous stream of iron passed through the center of the village, the occupiers behaved differently. Unable to handle the controls at the turn near the office, the Russians overturned a truck with shells. It lay there for a long time until local residents later began to carry the ammunition to safer places on their own, and after liberation, they handed them over to our military. It also happened that enemy equipment simply stalled in the middle of the street. There was a case when a broken armored vehicle stood for two days near the yard of one of the colleagues — teachers, until their own took it back.
Saving values and working «in the rear»
Oleksandra Hryhorivna spent the first day of the great war at home, but already on the second day, she and the head of studies were at their workplace. Realizing that the situation was unpredictable, the educators began to act intuitively. The first step was the rescue of the community symbols and memory: they removed the stand with photographs of the village residents − ATO participants from the wall. Also, the teachers collected and hid Ukrainian literature, took the labor books of the staff and the most important documentation, without which the functioning of the lyceum would have been impossible. Everything valuable, including school laptops, was taken to homes. The lyceum building itself continued to be heated even in the most terrible moments so that the system would not freeze and the school remained ready for the return of children.
Learning in isolation
Although the first two weeks passed in a state of complete uncertainty, the lyceum did not stop its work. Education switched to a remote format. Class teachers daily maintained contact with the children through Viber groups and phone calls. The connection was unstable: “There is light − there is connection”. Thanks to the fact that on the eve of the war fiber-optic internet was brought to the village, the boys found batteries and connected the equipment so that teachers could stay on the line. Full-fledged lessons according to the schedule could not be held then, but daily communication became for the children that thread that held them in reality. At the same time, the outflow of students began.
The “Family Ark” and the trial of silence
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Oleksandra Hryhorivna trusted her own intuition: it seemed to her that it would be much safer in her native village than in a large city. Guided by this feeling, she decided to bring her children, grandchildren, and nephews from Sumy at any cost. This was an extremely risky operation, as enemy checkpoints were already active around the regional center. A volunteer from Myropillia became the savior − in his minibus, he managed to slip past the occupiers at exactly that brief moment when there was no one at the posts. Thus, three families were successfully evacuated to Osoivka: a daughter with her husband and grandson, a son with his girls, and a niece with two small children.
For such a large family, the parental home became a real “ark”, but the safety issue remained the most important. The men of the family immediately set about setting up the shelter. A neighboring house came in handy − its owners had left for Zaporizhzhia and left the keys to Oleksandra Hryhorivna. The house itself was empty, but its old cellar became the main strategic object for the family. They approached the matter thoroughly, preparing for the worst-case scenario. Since the winter was fierce, the men first of all took care of warmth: they brought and installed a potbelly stove in the cellar so that people could withstand long hours of shelling there. After hearing news about blocked cities where people do not come to the surface for weeks, the cellar was turned into a real warehouse of provisions. They brought water supplies there, dried mountains of crackers, prepared cookies and sweets − the latter was especially important to somehow calm and distract the children during the alarm. They completed the daily life with warm clothes, blankets and equipped sitting places.
“We really did not know what was waiting for us, so we were preparing for everything”, − the director recalls. During two months, this huge family lived side-by-side, holding on to common daily life and faith in the better. Although Russian missiles flew over the village every day with a whistle, during that period “God had mercy” on Osoivka − there were no direct hits on residential buildings, and fortunately, they did not have to spend long hours in the stuffy cellar. However, the very presence of this prepared place gave the family the strength to keep calm under the roar of enemy aviation.
The March retreat: enemy in the yards and “human shield”
The most terrifying tension gripped Osoivka in March 2022, when Russian troops began to retreat under the pressure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Oleksandra Hryhorivna remembers how the secretary of the village council called her with disturbing news: a huge enemy column had stopped near Osoivka. Residents were warned: “Take care, hide the children, this column will be destroyed”.
However, the Russians realized that on the open road they were an easy target, so they resorted to the most insidious tactics. They began to descend into the village itself, drove into Strilky Street and set up their equipment right between residential buildings, in the yards of ordinary people. “They were just covering themselves with people, − the director states. − They came down and stood between the houses, because they realized that open terrain was dangerous for them. Our forces then canceled the operation so as not to hit their own”.
The occupiers stayed overnight under the cover of people’s homes, and the next morning they hastily left for Uhroidy. It was this episode that became a prelude to the further fate of the lyceum: the enemy, who could not hold the land, later began to methodically destroy what they could not conquer.
Osoivka Lyceum: from a blooming greenhouse to ruins
Osoivka Lyceum never fit the conception of an ordinary rural school. It was a modern educational center that even residents of large cities could envy. When guests first entered the institution, they were amazed: how in a village, 12 kilometers from the border, was it possible to create a space of such a level?
The history of this building began in 1991. It was a spacious two-story house, built according to a typical project: with a huge beautiful gym, an assembly hall and bright rooms. The school received a real “second breath” in 2017-2018, with the beginning of the New Ukrainian School reform and the creation of the Krasnopillia UTC.
The modernization was total. Although the district council and the agricultural firm provided financial support, most of the work was done by hand – by the hands of parents and school staff. Major repairs were carried out in almost all classrooms, electric lighting was replaced, and new windows and entrance doors were installed. The school gleamed with novelty. People who came even from Kyiv were amazed: ‘My children go to school in the capital, but they don’t have what you have here.’ And this was true: the lyceum had 10 multimedia boards and projectors — practically every class, including the preschool group, was equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
Nearby lay a stadium that looked like it was from a TV screen. Its history is an example of how a wasteland becomes a pearl. Once, this place was a swampy area, but by the decision of the late directors of the ‘Khvylia’ agricultural firm, Vasyl Ivanovych and Ivan Oleksandrovych, a modern sports arena was built here. The stadium became the home of the legendary local football team — the ‘Orion’ football club. This club has great traditions, and its soul is Yuriy Mykolayovych Avramenko. Even today, despite the war and destruction, the ‘Orionites’ hold the line: the team continues to play football, taking part in all possible competitions and proving that the spirit of Osoivka is impossible to break. The stadium’s perfect grass surface was lovingly mowed even during the war — it was a symbol that life goes on.
However, modern war spares neither beauty nor labor. When the devastating shelling began, it was the brick walls of the school, modernized with such love, that became the first target. Part of the precious equipment was successfully saved and moved to Sumy, but most of what was created by the hands of the community remained under the rubble after hits from enemy KABs.
Chronicle of resilience: how the enemy methodically destroyed the lyceum
The history of the destruction of the Osoivka Lyceum is not just one accidental explosion, but a long and painful chronicle of systematic destruction. The enemy seemed to test the walls for strength, delivering increasingly painful blows each time.
The institution suffered its first serious blow on July 19, 2024. It was around seven in the morning when an explosion rang out in the courtyard. At that time, windows in the workshop, gym, and canteen were damaged. This was the first warning sign, but the school stood firm. Trouble came a second time on the night of October 7, when an airstrike hit the school bus. The same one for which the driver had once filled out the last peaceful log sheet.
Winter months became a real ordeal. On December 26, artillery fire turned the facade into a sieve, tore out the entrance doors, and smashed the preschoolers’ playground.
‘The next day, December 27, a KAB fell 300 meters from the building. There were 15 of our employees in the shelter then,’ recalls Oleksandra Hryhorivna. The force of the explosion was so devastating that the heavy doors inside the shelter itself were simply torn out by the shockwave. The principal adds: ‘That was the first time we felt that what seemed safe could no longer protect us. Our employees… we were just miraculously saved, but that feeling of helplessness before such a weapon remained forever.’
April 2025 became fatal for the lyceum. Five airstrikes in two weeks. First, they smashed our ‘glass heart’ — the school greenhouse, boiler rooms, and workshops. And on the night of April 18, the final blow occurred. Oleksandra Hryhorivna recalls this moment with indescribable pain:
‘When they called, they said the school was already completely destroyed and a KAB had hit. We went, we looked — the school is gone,’ she says.
The most terrifying discovery was that even the specialized radiation shelter, built according to all standards, could not withstand this force. Oleksandra Hryhorivna adds: ‘The radiation shelter did not withstand a direct hit.’
In a single moment, the gym, assembly hall, and showers ceased to exist — everything that the people of Osoivka had modernized and were so proud of. This blow made the building beyond repair. What had been nurtured by the hands of parents and teachers turned into a pile of construction debris. The history of the lyceum has forever split into ‘before’ and ‘after.’
‘The building is no more; only a pit under the gym, where the shelter collapsed, now stands like an open wound in the very center of Osoivka,’ the principal concludes sadly.
Evacuation: when the village fell silent in three days
The critical point for Osoivka came in March 2025. Until then, the community had tried to hold on, but the intensity of the shelling became unbearable. On March 18, 2025, due to constant hits in the village, the electricity finally went out. Without electricity, under constant fire from KABs, life became impossible. A mandatory evacuation was announced.
These were the hardest days for Oleksandra Hryhorivna. Together with the class teachers, she coordinated the departure of every family. ‘The village emptied literally in three days. We understood that we had to get the children out while it was still physically possible,’ the principal recalls.
Evacuation took place with the support of the “Khvylya” agrifirm, which provided transport, and volunteer organizations, notably the “Proliska” charitable foundation. They helped evacuate large families and elderly people. Most of the residents of Osoivka scattered across the Sumy region − many found shelter in Romny, Nedryhailiv, the Poltava region or in Sumy itself. During those very days, under shelling, teachers performed their last quiet feat within the lyceum walls: they removed laptops and those very multimedia boards they managed to take down, so that children would have something to learn on in evacuation.
Today, 12 people in Osoivka continue to live. Without light, without gas. They are brought bread, and these few people remain living witnesses of how a once flourishing village turned into an exclusion zone.
School in a smartphone and faith in return
Today, Osoivka Lyceum has turned into a “school in a smartphone”. Although the physical walls of the institution have turned to dust, the educational process itself hasn’t stopped for a single day. This is an amazing example of how an idea and shared values prove to be stronger than concrete and brick. Today, 58 students remain. These are the children who, despite evacuation and danger, have remained loyal to their native school. The geography of the lyceum is now not limited to the boundaries of the community: children connect from Sumy, from safer corners of Ukraine, and some join lessons from Poland and other European countries.
The teaching staff has also become a community of “nomads”. Teachers, scattered by the war from Poltava region to Romny district, continue their work from rented apartments or temporary homes. Oleksandra Hryhorivna tirelessly coordinates this invisible institution, conducting meetings via Zoom or Google Meet, gathering her team in virtual space just as confidently as she once did in the teachers’ lounge.
Distance learning today − is a real challenge. Lessons are often accompanied by the sounds of air raid sirens sounding in different cities simultaneously. But for each of these 58 students, connecting to classes − is not just about gaining knowledge in mathematics or language. It is an opportunity to hear the familiar voice of a teacher from Osoivka, see the faces of friends and feel like part of that home again that they tried to take away from them.
When Oleksandra Hryhorivna is asked how the lyceum can live without walls, she answers with unbreakable faith: “The number of children has decreased, the building is completely destroyed, but the lyceum lives as long as there is at least one student waiting for the start of a lesson. We are scattered across the world, but we are one family”.
Now the school lives with the dream of returning. Teachers and students are waiting for the day when the shelling finally stops at the border. They believe that in the place of that terrible crater under the former gym, where even the strong concrete of the shelter did not hold up, a new story will surely begin − the story of rebuilding the Osoivka Lyceum.
The material was prepared by Natalia Chufeshchuk based on the results of a field mission within the project “Strengthening the resilience of civil society for justice and accountability” with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).