Odesa court sentences Kherson school director to 12 years in prison

An Odesa court sentenced a Kherson school principal who voluntarily sided with the Russians during the occupation to 12 years for treason. She gave the invaders the building of the institution and agreed to head the school they created.

This is stated in the decision of the Malynovskyi District Court of Odesa.

A court in Odesa found a former teacher from Kherson guilty of aiding the aggressor state and implementing Russian education standards in the temporarily occupied city.

According to the investigation, in the period from August to November 2022, during the occupation of Kherson, the woman, being the so-called "director" of school No. 31, voluntarily agreed to cooperate with the Russian occupation administration.

Before the occupation, she worked at the school as a history teacher and was the deputy director for educational work. Witnesses in the case said that around the beginning of the second week of August 2022, she came to the school, accompanied by Russian military personnel, and said that the occupation authorities had appointed her as the school principal and that she now represented the authorities.

She hung the Russian flag in the school, brought Russian textbooks and other symbols of the aggressor state, organized the educational process according to Russian standards and officially admitted students to the so-called school of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, witnesses confirmed that Ukrainian symbols were not destroyed under the woman's leadership - they were kept in the basement, as well as textbooks in the Ukrainian language. However, on her orders, the school was renovated, the Russian flag was installed, and the school itself was renamed. After the de-occupation, the school was found to be missing more than 50 pieces of computer equipment, which were probably taken out during the occupation.

The court sentenced her to 12 years in prison with a 15-year ban on working in education and government agencies, as well as confiscation of all her property. The woman was put on the wanted list back in March 2023, as she was hiding from the investigating authorities. Her sentence will begin from the moment of her actual detention.

The SBU also served a notice of suspicion to the former deputy director of a lyceum, who headed a school controlled by the invaders during the occupation. She openly collaborated with the Russians, removed Ukrainian symbols and destroyed educational materials, including burning Ukrainian textbooks.

Анна Бальчінос