After the attack on School 50 in Gorlovka, shattered glass from blown-out windows littered the classrooms and hallways and the street outside. The floors were covered in dust and debris: cracked ceiling beams, slabs of drywall, a television that crashed down from the wall. A cell phone sat on the desk next to where one of the teachers was killed.
In Ukraine, some schools still standing have become makeshift shelters for people whose homes were destroyed by shelling and mortar fire.
What often complicates war crimes prosecutions for attacks on civilian buildings is that large facilities like schools are sometimes repurposed for military use during war. If a civilian building is being used militarily, it is a legitimate wartime target, said David Bosco, a professor of international relations at Indiana University whose research focuses on war crimes and the International Criminal Court.
The key for prosecutors, then, will be to show that there was a pattern by the Russians of targeting schools and other civilian buildings nationwide as a concerted military strategy, Bosco said.
"The more you can show a pattern, then the stronger the case becomes that this was really a policy of not discriminating between military and civilian facilities," Bosco said. "(Schools are) a place where children are supposed to feel safe, a second home. Obviously shattering that and in essence attacking the next generation. That's very real. It has a huge impact."
As the war grinds on, more than half of Ukraine's children have been displaced.
In Kharkiv, which has undergone relentless shelling, children's drawings are taped to the walls of an underground subway station that has become not only a family shelter but also a makeshift school. Primary school-age children gather around a table for history and art lessons.
"It helps to support them mentally," said teacher Valeriy Leiko. In part thanks to the lessons, he said, "They feel that someone loves them."
Millions of kids are continuing to go to school online. The international aid group Save the Children said it is working with the government to establish remote learning programs for students at 50 schools. UNICEF is also trying to help with online instruction.
"Educating every child is essential to preventing grave violations of their rights," the group said in a statement to the AP.
On April 2, Grusha's community outside Kyiv began a slow reemergence. They are still raking and sweeping debris from schools and kindergartens that were damaged but not destroyed, she said, and taking stock of what's left. They started distance learning classes, and planned to relocate children whose schools were destroyed to others close by.
Even with war still raging, there is a return to normal life including schooling, she said.
But Levchenko, who was in Kyiv in early May to undergo surgery for her injuries, said the emotional damage done to so many children who have experienced and witnessed such immense suffering may never be fully repaired.
"It will take so much time for people and kids to recover from what they have lived," she said. The kids, she said, are "staying underground without sun, shivering from siren sounds and anxiety."
"It has a tremendously negative impact. Kids will remember this all their life."
