Russians exploiting schools in temporarily occupied territories to exert pressure on Ukrainian citizens - army spox

That’s according to Natalia Humeniuk, the spokesman for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, who spoke at the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"In the temporarily occupied territories, the enemy uses schools as a method of putting pressure on people. The occupiers demand that children attend special educational institutions. That is, they use schools as a tool to blackmail adults," Humeniuk said.

According to her, if parents refuse send their children to specially specified institutions, pressure is put on parents, their access to certain institutions is limited, including in medical care, social or humanitarian fields.

Some of such educational institutions, designated by the occupiers, operate as boarding schools, the head of the United Coordination Press Center noted.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, in a number of settlements in the occupied territories, high school students without a Russian passport were not allowed to attend school.

Seven hundred Ukrainian schools remain under Russian occupation. The Ministry of Education is not aware of the exact number of children remaining in the temporarily occupied territories as many of them have been taken to Russia, and some fled the TOT and are now abroad.