Ukraine: UNICEF counts almost 2,000 attacks on education since 2022 as school-time air-raid alerts hit 13% of lessons

Ukraine has suffered almost 2,000 attacks on education since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, about 270 of them this year, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, November 3. The figures were released a day after a strike on a school that was being used to hand out aid in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Learning under air-raid sirens

UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said that since the school year began, “children have experienced an average of 34 hours of air raid alarms during school time, equivalent to more than 13 per cent of scheduled learning”. The figure covers the period up to October 20.

The burden is uneven. In the Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Kharkiv regions, children sat through more than 60 hours of school-time alerts, roughly a quarter of scheduled lessons, according to the UN account of the briefing. That affects more than 560,000 children. In Kyiv, the number of alarms rose from 12 in September 2025 to 71 in September 2026.

Pires described a visit to Ukraine a month ago, where he met children who study underground because it is not safe above ground. Even in classroom bunkers, he said, they face constant alarms, and some of the older pupils spoke of anxiety and an inability to concentrate. He also relayed the testimony of a 15-year-old from the Mykolaiv region, Katia, who said that since returning to in-person school she still spends most of the day in a shelter.

The Komyshuvakha strike

On Monday a strike hit a school and shelter in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, which reportedly killed at least 29 civilians. Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, condemned the attack. He said most of the victims were residents “who came to get aid at a local school” and employees of the local administration. Subsequent strikes at the same location, he added, killed two rescuers and four police staff who had responded, and nearly 50 people are still missing.

The UN statement does not say who carried out the attack, and the casualty numbers are those given by the UN and local reports at this stage; they may change as the search continues.

Funding for counselling, not only classrooms

Maysa Jabout, head of the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait, said the effect of war on children everywhere is forcing the fund to put money into psychosocial counselling. That money, she said, is taken from funds “that we need for teaching and learning”, in order to support children’s ability to cope with learning in very difficult circumstances.

The UNICEF figures add to the humanitarian picture the UN has been describing in recent days, including the food and power needs of evacuees from Oleshky, covered in Oleshky: WFP feeds more than 400 evacuees in Kyiv, and Lindberg thanks Melania Trump for the ceasefire. Winter is approaching, and the UN has pushed for power to be restored before the cold sets in.

The full account of the briefing is on UN News.