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Ukrainian students hold graduation dance in front of the ruins of their school destroyed by Russian strikes
Jake Epstein – June 6, 2022
Ukrainian students hold graduation dance in front of the ruins of their school destroyed by Russian strikes
- Ukraine’s foreign ministry shared a video of students performing a “prom waltz” during the war.
- The dance took place on a basketball court in front of a bombed-out school in Kharkiv.
- Russian troops previously used the school as an outpost, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
With a backdrop of shattered windows and scorched walls, a handful of Ukrainian students stood in front of the rubble of their school — and danced.
In a 45-second-long video taken by Ukraine’s public broadcaster and posted to Twitter on Monday by Ukraine’s foreign ministry, students could be seen performing “their prom waltz” in front of their bombed-out school in the country’s second-largest city Kharkiv.
The students could be seen in the video doing a coordinated dance to a slow song. Behind them, a Ukrainian military vehicle sits next to a collection of troops.
Onlookers standing on the court could be seen using their phones to film and take photos before the footage cuts to a close-up view of the demolished school.
The school was destroyed just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and later became an “outpost” for Russian troops, the foreign ministry said in its tweet.
“Today, #Ukrainian alumni in #Kharkiv should happily celebrate their prom. Instead, they danced a graduation dance in the courtyard of their school, which was destroyed by the #russian MLRS,” Inna Sovsun, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the country’s former deputy education minister, said in a tweet.
Throughout Russia’s 14-week-long war against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin’s forces have routinely targeted schools — among other civilian areas like hospitals and shelters — across the country.