THESE are the brave Ukrainian children going to school underground – to stay safe from Russian bombardments.

Thousands of kids aged six to 16 learn in converted metro stations protected from the carnage above ground.

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Five underground schools have opened in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, just 15 miles from the border with Russia.

Teacher Olenna Volodomyr told The Sun: “It is strange having classes underground, but it is the only way to teach face to face.

“It is much better for the children.

“The children feel safe here, we feel safe here and the parents feel better because they know their children are safe.”

Kharkiv repelled a tank assault on the first day of the war in 2022 and it has faced a furious barrage of rockets, airstrikes and artillery ever since.

At one point 160,000 people lived in the city’s underground stations when the bombing was at its worst.

For most of the past two years since Putin unleashed his bloodbath invasion, Olenna taught her pupils online.

But she said it was “ten times” harder than it was teaching remotely in Covid, as frequent air raid sirens forced pupils to dash for cover.

Now her underground lessons are rarely disturbed, except by the muted rumble of metro trains, hidden by newly built classroom walls.

Staff asked The Sun not to name the station we visited for fear that Russia could target its entrances.

We saw a once-grand platform converted into half a dozen classrooms, with a nurse’s surgery and a breakout area complete with foam mats and toys.

‘Close the skies’

The marble-clad walls were covered with colourful posters, including some warning children not to touch the landmines or bombs that have been scattered around their homes.

Instead of windows for fresh air, vast extractor ducts run along the classroom ceilings.

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Valerii Shepel, the deputy head of Kharkiv’s education department, said there were 2,200 pupils enrolled across the five “metro schools” and that thousands more wanted to join.

He added: “We are planning to open more because demand is so high. We want one in every district.”

Officials realise there is little hope the war will end soon.

Western experts warned this week that Putin remains hell-bent on conquering all of Ukraine.

But they said he has no “meaningful plan” save for slogging it out for as long as it takes to overwhelm Ukraine with Russian mass.

Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov told The Sun today that half the city’s 200 schools had already been destroyed by the war.

Some 150,000 of the residents have been made homeless by Russia’s bombardments and half the city’s hospitals and medical facilities have been hit.

More than 300 civilians have been killed and almost 1,000 injured.

The mayor urged Ukraine’s allies to send air defence weapons to “close the skies” from Russian bombardments.

He said: “People have been burned alive. In the last strike on our city seven people burned in their sleep. It was awful.

“Three of them were children, including a ten-month-old boy.”

He added: “The most important thing for me is to keep our people safe.

“We need modern, sophisticated air defence systems to close the skies to these Russian missiles.

“Everything else we can do ourselves.”

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