International

As Russia retreats, one question remains: Who counts as an ally?

Russian officials came to Inna Mandryka with a simple proposal: if she agreed to open her school in a city on the territory she occupied and teach in Russian, she would be promoted from vice principal to principal.

It was an easy choice for Mandrika. “I refuse,” she said. “Teaching Russian courses is a crime.” The school remained closed with its classes dotted with colourful pictures of giraffes and bears.

Iryna Overedna, a teacher of the second grade in the city of Izium, made a different choice. “The teacher in me thought, ‘Kids should be in school,'” Ovaredna said. Besides, she said, she needs a salary to feed her family. She travelled to Kursk in southwestern Russia to study the new course.

As Ukrainian troops forced a chaotic retreat to Russian forces in Ukraine’s northeast this month, they reclaimed towns and villages that had been occupied for more than five months. In doing so, they inherited a legal and moral dispute that involved some thorny decisions: who sided with the Russians in the cities when they were under control?

In many places, the Russians had left tanks and their war dead, but there was also evidence of possible war crimes with mass graves and torture chambers. For thousands of Ukrainians, the occupation became a dark end to wartime cooperation, which is now punishable under Ukrainian law.

But the status of many activities is not necessarily clear, as they are linked to everyday life. For example, Ukrainian authorities do not view doctors, firefighters and employees of utility companies as traitors because their jobs are considered essential to the functioning of a city. But police officers, municipal and regional government employees and some teachers who agree to work under the Russian educational curriculum are classified as collaborators.

Teachers have a special dilemma.

Ukrainian authorities have fearlessly criticized teachers for wanting to follow Russian guidance. In a war intended to erode Ukrainian identity and language, they say, agreeing to educate children according to a curriculum that denies Ukraine’s existence as a state is a serious crime.

There is resentment within the Ukrainian government towards teachers bowing to the Russian authorities. Education Ombudsman Serhi Horbakov said cooperating teachers should at least lose their credibility. “These people absolutely cannot be allowed to work with Ukrainian children,” he said in an interview. “It will be a very difficult and painful story.”

About 1,200 schools are still in the occupied area. In their retaliatory strike, Ukrainian forces have captured an area that includes about 65. About half that opened on September 1 teaching the Russian curriculum, with about 200 teachers in total, Ukrainian prosecutors say, would only be closed within days as the army was swept in.

Not everyone will be arrested, Kharkiv Region Deputy Prosecutor Volodymyr Lymer said in an interview. He said teachers would be assessed on how active they played a role in preparing or promoting Russian propaganda for children, and punished accordingly. “For teachers, this is a tough question,” he said.

Izium, once a city of magnificent 19th-century brick buildings overlooking the Seversky Donets River, is now largely in ruins. When Ukrainian troops withdrew, residents greeted them with homemade dumplings and hugs. Even several days later, many were so relieved at the end of the occupation that they cried as they described the city’s liberation.

But he emphasized how he is now being judged for concessions made to avoid occupation – and even for small acts of cooperation with the Russian military. This signals a more widespread problem for Ukrainians as they liberate territory: the division and mistrust that stems from accusations of cooperation.

Already, some citizens in northern Ukraine have fled across the border to the Russian city of Belgorod, saying they fear retribution by Ukrainian authorities for working in jobs in the city’s administration. Others say aggressive social media campaigns have made them a target for their fellow townspeople.

Within weeks of the Russian invasion in February, residents of Izium said, their sleepy provincial town had turned into a see-glass world of horrors: bodies lay spotless on sidewalks, buildings were in ruins and Russian soldiers covered the streets. But patrolled, People hid in the basement for protection from the shelling.

Soon, residents were forced into uncomfortable choices.

“Every man chose his destiny,” said Oksana Hirizodub, a Russian literature instructor who declined to teach to Russians, but said she would not judge those who did. “For those who are stuck here, it is their matter,” she said.

Ovaredna, a second-grade teacher who agreed to return to work, described what she characterized as small steps toward cooperation with the Russians. The moral compromise was modest at first, she said.

First, she participated in a Russian-backed project in June to clear debris from a community center, called House of Culture, so that high school students could use it for a graduation ball.

She and others received a “working ration,” a handout of food, in return—but they said they didn’t do so much for the rations as to give the teens a little sense of mediocrity and celebration.

Later in the summer, she said, the Russian Occupation Authority contacted teachers who had organized the House of Culture to request the school open in the fall. First, they have to go to Kursk to study the course. He decided to leave and resume teaching.

“What if the business lasted for years?” Ovaredna said of his reasoning. “Shouldn’t the kids go to school?”

She said she did not see the Russian curriculum for second grade as particularly politicized. Yes, it was in Russian instead of Ukrainian and he was instructed to teach two Russian poets, Korney Chukovsky and Mikhail Prishvin.

“My goal was to survive,” she said. “To survive the winter, I had to eat. To eat, I had to work. I had to go to a conference to work.”

Ovredna said that she did not instruct Ukrainian children in the Russian curriculum; The Ukrainian offensive began before her school opened.

And she doesn’t consider his desire to teach guilt. “Teaching is my calling,” she said in an interview at her apartment, a dark, cluttered space filled with boxes of canned goods. There is no electricity and she cooks over a campfire in the courtyard to prepare the food.

She said that through the hardships, she yearned to return to the normality of the school year. “I can’t imagine myself not being in class.”

She continued, “And now everyone says, ‘You are the enemy of the people.”

Related Posts

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button