Pakistan Launches Open Military Campaign Against Taliban in Afghanistan

February 28, 2026

Pakistan declares 'open war' on Taliban in Afghanistan — Destruction after Pakistani jets carried out airstrikes in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan

Beyond the Smoke: When War Crosses a Border and the World Watches

For the second night in a row, the skyline above Kabul and Kandahar was rent by light that did not belong to sunset: tracer flashes, missile trails, and the orange bloom of fires. Ambulance sirens weaved through neighborhoods, mingling with the soft, insistent cry of the muezzin — a soundtrack that has become unbearably familiar in this part of the world.

What began as a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks along a long, porous frontier has now leaped a boundary of rhetoric and into what Pakistani leaders have bluntly called “open war.” Jets and missiles, Pakistan says, struck military facilities inside Afghanistan — not merely the militant camps Islamabad has long blamed on groups sheltered across the border. For Afghanistan’s ruling authorities, the strikes were a brazen assault on their soil. For ordinary people on both sides, the result is the same: fear, displacement and questions with no easy answers.

Night of fire over Kabul and Kandahar

Witnesses in Kabul described a city waking to the rumble of explosions and the sting of smoke. “We were eating dinner,” said a shopkeeper near the old city, his face still marked by ash. “Then the sky lit up. My children were terrified. I have seen war before, but nothing like this — the sound was different, closer.”

Pakistani officials said the strikes targeted 22 military sites and took out scores of fighters. Islamabad’s military spokesman told reporters the operation was an “effective, immediate and brutal response” after what he described as repeated attacks into Pakistani territory. The Taliban’s own spokesmen answered with counterclaims: dozens of Pakistani soldiers killed, posts seized, and drone strikes launched into Pakistan. Independent verification is difficult when both sides offer sharply different casualty figures — a now-familiar pattern that feeds an information war as damaging as the kinetic one.

Voices from the ground

At a crowded hospital in Kandahar, a nurse described the chaos in quiet, measured terms. “People brought in men, boys, even a child with burns,” she said. “You try to patch hands and lives at the same time. We have few medicines and too many explosions.”

Across the border in Balochistan province, near the town of Chaman, Pakistani soldiers stood guard at checkpoints as anxious families were taken to temporary holding centres. “We cannot sleep,” said a woman who had been taken into a government facility after security operations. “We have lived with the border for generations. Now our men are being called to fight the men next door.”

Experts watching from capitals and think tanks express deep concern. “This is not a skirmish,” said a regional analyst in Islamabad, asking not to be named for security reasons. “It risks becoming a protracted conflict along a frontier that is nearly 2,600 kilometres long. That is not a line you fix with a quick strike.”

Claims, counters, and the fog of war

Both sides have offered casualties that the other disputes. Pakistan’s military put the Afghan side’s losses in the hundreds, while the Taliban offered lower figures and its own tally of Pakistani soldiers killed. The United Nations and independent agencies urge caution: in modern conflicts, numbers on the ground — especially early on — are often inflated for strategic effect.

What is indisputable is the human toll beyond the numbers. Hospitals report civilian injuries. Markets that once thrummed with trade fall silent. Families who once crossed the border for weddings, work, or to visit relatives now face closed crossings and detention; reports say hundreds of Afghan nationals have been taken to holding centres for possible deportation.

Regional alarm and fragile diplomacy

The reverberations have been immediate. Beijing and Moscow, already juggling broader strategic relationships in the region, have moved to press both sides towards restraint. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — all of which have acted as mediators before — also appear to be engaging quietly to prevent escalation. Iran, which shares borders with both states, offered mediation too, even as Tehran navigates its own fraught relationship with the United States.

Diplomacy matters because this is not merely a bilateral spat. A sustained conflict along the Pakistan–Afghanistan frontier threatens refugee flows at a time when millions in the region already live precariously. It has implications for counterterrorism, for trade corridors criss-crossing Central and South Asia, and for global efforts to stabilize Afghanistan after the chaotic withdrawals and realignments of the past decade.

Why this matters to the world

Consider three facts that put this flare-up in perspective:

Porous border: The Pakistan-Afghanistan border stretches roughly 2,600 km and is braided with informal crossings used by traders, pastoralists and families for generations.
Nuclear-armed neighbours: Pakistan is one of the world’s nuclear-armed states; any prolonged military confrontation between nuclear-armed neighbours raises stakes well beyond the battlefield.
Fragile populations: Both countries host millions who are vulnerable — internally displaced people, refugees, and communities dependent on cross-border trade and seasonal labour.

When neighbours with asymmetrical capabilities clash, the simple arithmetic of power obscures messy realities. Pakistan’s military strength is substantial on paper; yet past decades have shown that guerrilla tactics, local knowledge and complex tribal geographies can blunt conventional advantages. “You cannot bomb a border into submission,” another analyst said. “You can only break it, and then you have to live with the pieces.”

Local color: markets, memories and survival

In Kandahar’s old bazaar, vendors sweep dust from sacks of dried apricots and pistachios as they eye the emptying streets. The sound of a stove being tended in a nearby teahouse is a small, stubborn act of normality. “War is like the weather here,” an elder at the teahouse remarked. “It comes and you try to carry on.”

Generations of Pashtun families straddle both sides of the Durand Line — an arbitrary colonial boundary that locals often treat as porous and, in many places, meaningless. Marriage ties, grazing rights, and seasonal markets bind communities in ways that official maps do not reflect. When shells replace conversation, those ties fray.

What comes next?

Diplomacy will likely intensify; international mediators will knock on doors and press for de-escalation. But the reality on the ground is harsher: trust is scarce, and any ceasefire will be fragile. If a long campaign unfolds, expect cross-border displacement, a new wave of humanitarian needs and increased pressure on neighbouring states to pick sides or mediate effectively.

So ask yourself: how do you measure the cost of a conflict that lives at the margins of global headlines but at the centre of millions of lives? What responsibility do distant capitals hold when they seek influence but not the mess of reconstruction and reconciliation?

For now, smoke rises over ancient minarets, ambulances hurry through streets once safe for children to play, and families count the missing and the dead. The world’s response — whether a chorus of mediation, aid and sober diplomacy or a parade of rhetoric — will shape what happens next. In the streets of Kabul and Kandahar, and the dusty border crossings between them, people will be waiting to see whether the guns give way to talks, or whether a new chapter of conflict begins.

Israel and U.S. carry out coordinated strikes on Iranian targets

hanad

February 28, 2026

Israel, US launch strikes on Iran — Smoke rises over Tehran after the Israeli army launched a second wave of air strikes

Morning of Thunder: How a Single Dawn Rewrote the Map of a Region

It began before breakfast. Not with a single headline, but with the sound—the kind that unspools the ordinary. In Tehran, residents woke to the tremor of distant detonations, the sharp whine of air-raid sirens, and a city’s ancient rhythms interrupted by modern fury. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, school bells were silenced and aircraft were grounded. On screens across the world, a message from Washington framed the violence as necessity and an opportunity.

By mid‑day the air was thick with questions: Who decided this? What happens next? And what will it cost the people who live between these lines on a map?

What Happened

In a coordinated campaign described by U.S. officials as “Operation Epic Fury,” American forces, alongside Israeli partners, launched strikes on sites within Iran. Iran’s military responded by firing ballistic missiles toward Israeli territory, according to Israeli statements, and Tehran warned that it would respond with force to any further attacks.

The U.S. government framed the operation as defensive and decisive. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” the White House said in a brief statement.

Israeli leaders, too, cast the strikes in existential terms. “This action was pre‑emptive, meant to remove threats to our state,” said a senior Israeli defence spokesperson. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Iranians to seize a historic moment, framing the assault as a potential catalyst for change inside the Islamic Republic.

Snapshots from the Ground

On a cracked sidewalk near Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, a tea seller wrapped his hands around a chipped glass and said softly, “We heard the booms and then the calls to prayer—two worlds colliding. People are rushing to the metro, to relatives, to nowhere.”

An ambulance driver in southern Tehran who asked not to be named described the scene as surreal. “There were families packing small bags. An old man told me, ‘We’ve survived sanctions, we survived a war. I don’t know about this one.’”

In Haifa, a nurse described an eerie calm despite the alarms. “We locked the doors in the hospital wards,” she said. “Children were quieter than their parents. Everyone kept checking their phones for the next alert.”

Context: The Long Fuse That Led Here

This flare‑up did not arrive out of nowhere. It unfolded on a landscape shaped by decades of mistrust. Since the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran—when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days—relations between Tehran and Washington have been frigid, punctuated by sanctions, intelligence gambits, and proxy conflicts across the Middle East.

In recent years, concern over Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic‑missile development became lightning rods for U.S. and Israeli policy. Tehran insists it seeks civilian nuclear capability; Western capitals fear the thresholds to weaponization. Negotiations to revive or renegotiate accords have edged along and broken apart: in February, diplomats returned to talks that many hoped would displace conflict with diplomacy. Those hopes dimmed as missile tests, covert attacks, and mutual warnings accumulated.

Immediate Impacts and Numbers Worth Noting

Operation name: Reported by U.S. sources as “Operation Epic Fury.”
Historical echo: Reference to the 1979 hostage crisis—52 Americans held for 444 days—underscores deep historical trauma shaping policy.
Regional readiness: Israel closed airspace and suspended schools and many workplaces; sirens sounded nationwide; airports asked passengers to stay away.
Previous clashes: The current strike follows a 12‑day air campaign last June and a retaliatory missile volley by Iran against Al Udeid air base in Qatar, the region’s largest U.S. installation.

Numbers like these do more than punctuate a narrative; they map a pattern of escalation. Each incident widens the corridor for miscalculation.

Voices: Officials, Analysts, and the People Between

A European security analyst familiar with the region’s military balance observed, “This is a punctuation mark in a long sentence of deterrence and signaling. Neither side wants unconditional war, but both are testing the limits of the other.”

In Tehran, a young teacher named Mahsa shared a quiet but fierce worry. “We are fasting for Ramadan,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a time of reflection. Instead, we are thinking of bunkers and batteries.”

An Iranian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told international reporters that Tehran was preparing a “crushing retaliation” if necessary—language that underscored how easily rhetoric can harden into reality.

A retired U.S. diplomat who worked on previous Iran negotiations said, “Military options have seldom solved the strategic puzzles here. They close doors, not open them.”

Local Color: Food, Faith, and Festivals in the Crossfire

The strikes landed amid a calendar dense with ritual: Muslims observing Ramadan, drawing quiet strength from dawn meals and late‑night prayers; Jewish communities preparing for Purim, a holiday that, in a cruel twist of history, commemorates deliverance from ancient Persia. The overlap of sacred time and strategic action gives the moment a bitterly theatrical feel.

On Tehran streets, vendors hurried to sell samanu and dates—sweet foods for the pre‑dawn meal known as suhoor. In Israel, bakeries that would usually bustle ahead of Purim were quieter, flour dust settling on countertops like a momentary peace.

Looking Forward: Questions That Won’t Wait

What comes next? Will diplomacy be buried under rubble, or will a pause open a breathing space for negotiators? Can regional partners—Gulf states, Turkey, Europe, Russia, and China—mediate a de‑escalation that prevents wider war?

These are not hypothetical. The practical questions—power to hospitals, supply lines for medicines, the fate of civilians who cross borders for work—are immediate and urgent. Every missile arc redraws daily life for ordinary people, from fishermen on the Persian Gulf to commuters in Tel Aviv.

As you read this, think about the costs that rarely make the front pages: children missing school, markets shuttered, a mother’s sleeplessness counting the hours of each siren. Who bears the burden when states exchange threats as currency?

Conclusion: An Unfinished Chapter

This morning’s thunder was more than military maneuvers. It was an amplifier of old grievances, a test of alliances, and a reminder that the maps we study in classrooms translate into lives moving through streets, markets, and neighborhoods. History has always been made in moments like this—on mornings when ordinary routines collide with the extraordinary.

Will the strikes force Tehran to the negotiating table on new terms? Will they harden resolve and entrench cycles of retaliation? Only the coming days will tell. For now, the city gates are closed, the mosques and synagogues bear witness, and the people—quiet, resilient, fearful—carry on.

How do you imagine peace being rebuilt after such a rupture? What would it take—policy, courage, compromise, or something else entirely? The answers matter not just to capitals, but to the lives that will unfold after the smoke clears.

Trump floats idea of a ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba

hanad

February 28, 2026

Trump raises prospect of 'friendly takeover' of Cuba — US President Donald Trump speaking to the media on the South Lawn of the White House today

A Casual Line That Could Reshape a Nation: Trump’s Offhand ‘Friendly Takeover’ and What It Means for Cuba

On a bright Washington morning, with the routine clack of Air Force One doors behind him, the U.S. president tossed out a phrase that landed like a stone in a pond: “maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.” It was the sort of offhand remark that blooms into headlines and rumors, then ripples all the way to the narrow streets of Havana and the sun-baked sidewalks of Miami.

Listen to the cadence of geopolitics: two countries separated by 90 miles of water, nearly six decades of distrust, and a diaspora that remembers exile like a family heirloom. “It sounded like the past knocking on the present,” said a Cuban-American baker in Little Havana, wiping flour from his hands. “My parents fled a long time ago. We don’t want a repeat of anything violent. We just want dignity.”

What Was Said — And What Wasn’t

The president’s comments, made as he departed the White House for a trip to Texas, suggested that senior officials were in contact with Cuban figures at a “very high level.” He referenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the senator’s involvement reported in some outlets as part of a flurry of private meetings with Cuban intermediaries — and painted an image of a country in economic freefall: “They have no money. They have no oil, they have no food,” he said.

Some U.S. news organizations have reported back-channel discussions between American officials and relatives of Cuba’s old guard. Cuba’s government has denied that formal, high-level negotiations are underway, though it has not categorically dismissed the existence of informal contacts. In the fog between official denials and press scoops, facts tangle with speculation.

Why the Words Matter

“Language like that can be catalytic,” said an international relations scholar in Washington who tracks U.S.-Latin America policy. “Even if it’s aspirational or rhetorical, it signals intent — to diplomats, investors, and local actors. It can embolden opposition groups, intimidate incumbents, and invite external actors to recalibrate. That’s the power of presidential pronouncements.”

On the Ground in Miami and Havana

In Miami’s Little Havana, murals of Che Guevara rub shoulders with Cuban flags and storefronts playing boleros. The Cuban diaspora here numbers in the millions across the United States, with a particularly dense community in South Florida. “A lot of people want change, but there’s a spectrum of what ‘change’ means,” said a community organizer who volunteers at a senior center where elders gather for dominoes and news. “For some it’s return and reconciliation. For others it’s retribution. You can feel both at once.”

Havana’s energy is different but equally charged. Long lines at bakeries, intermittent blackouts, and a market economy that exists partly in shadow are daily realities. “We survive on three things: ration books, remittances, and ingenuity,” a Havana teacher told me during a short phone call. “If there’s a plan from abroad, people are wary. We don’t want to be a chessboard.”

Context: Economy, Embargo, and Everyday Strain

Cuba’s economic malaise is not new. Decades of a U.S. embargo, the loss of subsidies from former allies, and brittle public finances have left the island vulnerable. In recent years, shortages of food and fuel, rolling blackouts, and a flourishing informal economy have punctured the island’s stability.

Remittances — money sent home by Cubans living abroad — have been a lifeline: they flow in billions annually and support countless families. Estimates vary by source, but analysts agree that this private income now rivals or exceeds some state revenue streams in importance. That dependence also makes Cuba a focus of foreign leverage and diasporic politics.

Recent Incidents and Tensions

Recently, a violent maritime confrontation was reported between Cuban authorities and men attempting to enter Cuban waters. Some U.S. officials denied direct involvement; others cautioned that the incident underscored simmering tensions. Whether through blockades, sanctions, or covert actions, the pressure on Cuba is multifaceted and international in scope.

“When you constrain fuel and food, you’re testing a regime’s social contract,” the Washington scholar said. “You can push citizens toward the brink, but you also risk humanitarian fallout.”

Back-Channel Diplomacy, Real or Reported

Journalistic accounts have suggested meetings between U.S. operatives and members of Cuba’s old revolutionary network — even a grandson of former leadership — on the sidelines of regional gatherings. Such back-channel talks are not unprecedented in geopolitics; nations often use unofficial lines to explore possibilities that official diplomacy cannot yet bear.

“If you’ve been in this business long enough, you know not to trust headlines that promise immediate regime transformations,” said a retired diplomat who spent years in Latin America. “But you also cannot ignore the seriousness when a sitting president publicly entertains the idea of a takeover. It attracts attention, capital, and spoilers.”

Local Voices, Global Stakes

Across the political spectrum, people wrestle with the implications. A small-business owner in Havana recalls the first days after the revolution when friends believed liberation meant groceries and rights. “They were disappointed,” he said. “We’re asking for clear, steady lives, not slogans.”

In Miami, a young Cuban-American who came to the United States as a child sees the debate through a different lens. “I want to visit my abuela without fear. If change comes, it should come on Cuban terms. Not as a takeover with outsiders deciding our future.”

What Would a “Friendly Takeover” Even Mean?

Ask yourself: is it possible to engineer a takeover that is “friendly,” lawful, and sustainable? International law rests on principles of sovereignty and non-interference. Historical U.S. interventions in Latin America — from the 20th century’s overt interventions to more subtle economic pressures — have left mixed legacies. They offer lessons but no easy templates.

Consider the potential consequences:

Diplomatic fallout and regional destabilization.
Humanitarian risks if supply chains and governance structures are disrupted.
Domestic political costs in the U.S., where the Cuban-American community is far from monolithic.
Geopolitical competition from other global powers with interests in the hemisphere.

Reflection: Power, Promise, and Prudence

Words have gravity. When leaders talk about remaking nations, they summon history, longing, and fear. The idea of a “friendly takeover” is both arresting and dangerous — it presumes control over a people’s future and underestimates the complexities of social trust. It also forces a question upon us: who gets to decide how a nation changes?

“Cuba’s future should be shaped by Cubans,” said a human rights advocate in Miami. “That includes Cubans inside and outside the island, and it must protect the rights of ordinary people first.”

As headlines churn and diplomats brief behind closed doors, ordinary lives are at stake. The baker in Little Havana returns to his oven; the domino players at the senior center resume their game. The island waits and watches, and the world wonders: when power is personal, so too are its consequences.

Paramount poised to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $110 billion deal

hanad

February 28, 2026

Paramount to buy Warner Bros Discovery in $110bn deal — The companies said that the deal is expected to ⁠close in the third quarter of 2026

When Two Hollywood Giants Kiss: The Deal That Could Redraw the Map of Movies

There’s a peculiar hush on Hollywood Boulevard this week, the kind that happens after a parade has passed and the confetti settles into the gutters. Tourists still pose beneath the TCL Chinese Theatre’s marquee; the street performers still coax tips with drum loops—but in the boardrooms behind those neon lights, a different kind of theater played out that could change what we watch for decades.

Paramount Skydance has agreed to buy Warner Bros Discovery in a blockbuster transaction valued at $110 billion. It’s a number so vast it flattens into a shape of its own: an $81 billion equity value, $47 billion coming in equity from Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s family and RedBird Capital, and roughly $54 billion in committed debt from Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo. The companies say they expect the merger to close in the third quarter of 2026.

More than a studio merger—it’s a hoard of stories

For cinephiles, the headline is irresistible: the combined company would control a library of more than 15,000 titles and steward massive franchises—Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Mission: Impossible, the DC Universe, Fantastic Beasts and The Matrix among them. Imagine a single corporate bookshelf large enough to host every blockbuster imaginable. It’s tempting and a little terrifying.

“It’s like handing the keys of the vault to someone who already owns the bank,” said Rajiv Mehta, a media analyst at Westlake Insights. “The value here isn’t just the titles. It’s the global licensing, merchandising, and the power to bundle streaming offerings in a way that changes competition.”

A bidding war that reads like a thriller

The final act of this drama was a bidding war. Netflix, the streaming pioneer and the world’s largest streamer with well over 200 million subscribers, once held an agreement to acquire Warner’s studio and streaming assets at $27.75 per share. Paramount countered with a higher bid—$31 per share—and Netflix declined to match it, allowing Paramount’s offer to prevail.

“Netflix had the legal right to match the PSKY offer,” a Warner executive told employees in a company town hall. “They chose not to. That led to the signed agreement with PSKY this morning.”

Paramount’s pursuit was aggressive and methodical. The company revived a hostile campaign late last year, steadily raising its bid and even boosting the termination fee it would pay should regulators block the deal—from $5.8 billion to $7 billion. Paramount has already paid $2.8 billion to Netflix for terminating the earlier agreement, according to regulatory filings.

How it’s being financed—and why that matters

Large deals require large scaffolding. Alongside the $47 billion in equity pledges, Paramount is lining up $54 billion in debt commitments and plans a rights offering of up to $3.25 billion of Class B stock for existing shareholders.

The math also promises operational savings: the companies say they expect more than $6 billion in annual savings from technology integration, streamlining corporate functions, and consolidating overlapping operations. That’s the classic marriage pitch for big mergers—scale, cost-cutting, and more bargaining power with distributors and advertisers.

Voices from the street—and the screening room

Not everyone sees cost savings as a win. On Sunset Boulevard, Maya Torres runs a single-screen cinema that has survived changing times by programming community shows and midnight cult classics. She worries about the ripple effects.

“When studios merge, the middle gets squeezed,” she said. “Big franchises will get all the push. Smaller movies—and the audiences that love them—lose their voice. I’m bracing for fewer prints, fewer windowed releases, and pressure on ticket prices.”

Union members echo the anxiety. “Consolidation often means fewer jobs and more bargaining leverage for management,” said Lena Park, a member of a local performers’ guild. “We’re watching for what this means for autonomy, residuals, and creative opportunities.”

Regulators step into the spotlight

Hollywood’s giant has attracted the attention of regulators. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said his office will conduct a “vigorous” review of the transaction, and litigation or conditions could follow. European Union competition authorities, by contrast, are reportedly less likely to stand in the way—any required divestments there are expected to be “minor.”

That split in regulatory posture is instructive. The United States—especially California—views media consolidation not just as an economic question but a cultural one. Will fewer companies controlling more stories erode diversity of perspective? Will consumers pay more for fewer choices?

Big winners, possible losers

Paramount stands to gain a treasure trove of intellectual property and the possibility of combining HBO Max and Paramount+—a pairing that could immediately change the streaming competitive map and mount a stronger challenge to Netflix. Yet industry watchers caution that bigger does not always mean better.

For consumers: Potential for bundled services and cross-promotion—but also possible price increases and reduced content variety.
For theaters: Fear of fewer theatrical-only titles and more direct-to-streaming releases for franchise films.
For creators: Job consolidation, fewer greenlit mid-budget films, and more pressure towards franchise-safe content.

What this says about the media landscape

We’re watching consolidation beget consolidation. In the past decade, Amazon’s purchase of MGM and Comcast’s strategic moves reshaped the terrain. This deal—one of the largest in Hollywood history—signals that the next phase of the industry will be dominated less by the scrappy newcomer and more by financial alliances, scale plays, and the ability to monetize a library across streaming, theatrical, and ancillary markets.

“It’s a turning point where content ownership and distribution become indistinguishable,” said Mehta. “Scale will determine negotiating power with telecoms, advertisers, and international partners.”

Questions for the viewer

As the legal reviews begin and financiers close their ledgers, a few questions remain for anyone who loves movies and stories: Do we want a landscape shaped by a handful of super-studios? What does creative risk look like when corporate balance sheets dictate green lights? And how will global audiences—across vastly different cultural appetites—fare under a more centralized content engine?

We live in an era where the films we queue up on Friday night are as much a product of finance as of artistry. That’s not inherently dystopian; a merged Paramount-Warner could bankroll ambitious projects unseen in the current market. It could also push smaller voices to the margins. Which path prevails may come down to regulators, unions, and audiences making clear what they value.

So next time you stand under a marquee, look up at the faces staring from the posters. Behind those smiling stars are boardrooms and balance sheets shaping what reaches the screen. And as viewers, we get to decide—through our clicks, our subscriptions, and our voices—whether we’ll accept fewer gates to a larger garden, or demand many gardens where all kinds of stories can grow.

Inside Kharkiv’s Underground School: Watch a Rare, Intimate Tour

hanad

February 28, 2026

Watch: Inside one of Kharkiv's underground schools

Downstairs Lessons: How Kharkiv’s Children Go to School Beneath the City

On a cold morning in Kharkiv, the city’s tram lines hummed aboveground while a different kind of life unfolded below. I stood at the mouth of a reinforced stairwell and listened as a distant siren faded — the ordinary, unnerving punctuation of daily life here. Then I descended into a world that feels both familiar and utterly alien: classrooms carved into the concrete ribs of the city’s subway and custom-built air‑raid shelters, where school desks and chalkboards sit shoulder-to-shoulder with pipes, tiles and the low, constant echo of a metropolis under strain.

Since 2024, tens of thousands of children in this eastern Ukrainian city have been attending classes underground. Kharkiv, barely 30 kilometres from the active frontline, was pummelled at the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and remains within range of drones and missiles. Today, according to municipal figures, roughly 55,000 pupils are taught in about 21 underground sites — metro stations turned classrooms, repurposed bomb shelters and purpose-built subterranean schools.

What a school day looks like under the surface

Imagine the bell: not the thin metal clang of a school in peacetime but the steady, human cadence of teachers stepping out from behind a partition, smiling through masks and scarves. Students trickle in with backpacks, some clutching notebooks, others clutching small comfort objects — a toy, a fleece scarf, a photograph tucked into a pencil case. Teachers organize lessons on laminated timetables, but they also double as guardians of calm, breathing exercises and storytellers who carefully shield children from the mechanics of war with narrative and routine.

“We teach verbs and sums, but we also teach how to be still,” said a teacher who leads a primary class in a converted metro hall. “Not to freeze in fear, but to sit quietly during alerts, to help a friend, to trust that the adults here will keep them safe.” Her voice was steady; her eyes were tired but resolute. “The small wins matter — a handwriting improvement, a child returning after a week away, a nervous smile that didn’t need to be rehearsed.”

Lessons are adapted. Physical education looks different underground — games of coordination and breath control replace sprinting across a playground. Art classes use found materials and bright paper to build mosaics that hang like flags along concrete walls. Science experiments are planned with safety in mind; experiments that require heat or strong chemicals are postponed for online sessions or moved to safer days. Technology helps bridge gaps: when signal holds, teachers stream live lessons to children who cannot leave their homes.

Voices from the underground

“I missed the sun at first,” said 12‑year-old Yulia, turning a page in a math workbook, fingers ink‑stained from solving fractions. “But I like being with my friends. We laugh a lot. My teacher tells stories about Kyiv and our region and sometimes about when everything was different.” Yulia offered her answer shyly, then brightened: “I want to be a doctor. To help people. Under here, you learn to be brave.”

Parents speak in tones threaded with gratitude and sorrow. “We thought about leaving in 2022,” said Maksym, father of two. “But my wife’s elderly mother couldn’t move, and the children need routine. These underground schools give us that — and something else: dignity. They are places where kids are not just protected but taught to think about a future.” He paused. “It doesn’t replace the green parks, but it keeps childhood alive.”

Behind the numbers: facts and support

The scale of Ukraine’s educational disruption has been immense. International agencies such as UNICEF and UNESCO have repeatedly underscored that the war has affected millions of children’s schooling, both directly through destruction and indirectly through displacement and economic strain. In Kharkiv alone, municipal data indicate the 21 subterranean learning sites accommodate about 55,000 students, an extraordinary mobilization that illustrates the city’s pivot from conventional schooling to education as a protective service.

Local authorities coordinate with schools, volunteers and international partners to ensure the shelters are ventilated, heated and stocked with basic supplies. Many of these underground sites began as metro stations or civil-defence bunkers; some were expanded or refurbished after 2022 to meet the demands of continuous schooling under threat. Air raid alerts still sound multiple times a day — a fact parents and teachers measure their days by — but the routine has settled into a kind of rough normalcy that many here call “life with precautions.”

Inside, but not isolated

It would be easy to imagine an underground school as bleak and sterile. Instead, what you find is a surprising array of color and care. Teachers tape students’ artwork along the columns; a volunteer group hangs fairy lights to soften the glare of fluorescent bulbs; a local baker delivers loaves of bread to children in the mornings. Kharkiv’s cultural soul — its music cafes, its student theaters, its commitment to community — threads through even these concrete vaults.

“We try to keep our identity alive,” said Lyudmila, a school director coordinating schedules across several underground sites. “Singing lessons, poetry readings, even history class — all remind the children they belong to a place, not just to a time of crisis. That matters for resilience.”

Why these makeshift schools matter beyond safety

Protection is the obvious reason. But education in such circumstances also preserves social networks, nurtures mental health, and maintains a sense of possibility. Psychologists emphasize that routine — predictable transitions from home to school, from math to recess, from lesson to lunch — is stabilizing for children who experience trauma. Groups working in Ukraine report that structured learning can reduce anxiety, lower behavioral problems and sustain developmental progress that would be otherwise lost.

“Education in emergencies is not a luxury,” observed an international education expert I spoke with. “It’s a core part of humanitarian protection. It anchors lives and prevents the long-term erosion of a society’s human capital.” She added that investments in child-focused psychosocial support, teacher training and safe learning environments pay dividends for decades.

Looking up: reflection and the wider picture

Walking back upstairs, the light strikes differently after you’ve spent hours below — brighter, somehow brash. You notice the scaffolding around a damaged facade, the new mural on a school wall, the children who run with the reckless joy only young bodies can muster. Kharkiv’s underground classrooms are a testament to an extraordinary human impulse: to keep teaching, to keep learning, and to keep hope within reach.

Do we measure the cost of education interrupted only by tallying lost school hours? Or should we also count the courage of teachers transforming metro platforms into laboratories of resilience, the tenderness of parents delivering snacks and the small, stubborn acts of play that insist on joy? When conflict forces cities to reinvent where schooling happens, the world watches what a community chooses to preserve.

For readers far from eastern Ukraine: what does it mean when children’s lives are rerouted into tunnels and bomb shelters so they can learn? How does the global community respond — with aid, with policy, with long-term support for rebuilding schools and mental-health services? These are questions that stretch beyond Kharkiv’s station-turned-classroom, asking us how we protect the future of the world’s children when the present becomes uncertain.

Back in the underground hall, a teacher rings a small bell and the students straighten. The lesson resumes — a geography map unfolds, a child answers a question, a scribbled star is circled in pink felt-tip. Above them, the city goes on: trams, markets, the low thrum of a place holding its breath and pushing forward. Down there, beneath the weight of threat, learning does not stop. It adapts, insists, survives. And in that insistence you can see the outline of life continuing — stubborn, everyday, utterly human.

Volunteer calls return to Clare ‘sobering’ after Ukraine mission

hanad

February 27, 2026

Return to Clare 'sobering' after Ukraine work - volunteer — A Clare flag hanging in a bunker in Ukraine

On the Edge of Sound: Two Irish Volunteers and the New Geometry of War

When you imagine a warzone you might picture shattered facades, columns of smoke, rows of sandbags and the solemn pace of ambulances. What Oran McInerney and Declan McEvoy came back talking about was something sharper, more modern: the soft whine of drones threading the sky like predatory insects, the weathered resilience of people insisting on normal life in the shadow of missile warnings, and the strange intimacy of cross-border compassion that brings an electrician from County Clare to a makeshift kitchen in Kharkiv.

The conflict that began in February 2022 has now rolled into its fifth year, a slow-motion catastrophe stretching over a thousand kilometres of front line. It has become a conflict not only fought with boots and tanks, but with batteries, microprocessors and the kinds of commercially accessible aerial systems that turn ambulances into targets and a quick extraction into a life-or-death sprint.

Frontline Medicine in the Drone Age

“You can’t linger anymore,” Oran tells me in a voice that holds the grit of somebody who has repeatedly come back from the heart of things. “An extraction that used to be measured in minutes is now measured in seconds. If a drone spots you, you’re finished.”

From Doonbeg in Co Clare, Oran has travelled multiple times to eastern Ukraine as an emergency medical technician working with a US-based NGO. He’s evacuated civilians from places that have become shorthand for the war’s brutality—Kramatorsk, Bakhmut—and has loaded wounded soldiers, Ukrainian and Russian, into ambulances while the horizon bled with the slow, lethal choreography of modern warfare.

“There’s always a quiet moment,” Oran says. “It’s the pause between the siren and the impact, when everyone looks at the sky. That’s when you learn faces—aged, terrified, incredulous. One man I helped said he couldn’t believe someone had come from Ireland to lift him out. He gripped my hand like we’d been family for years.”

The threat that modern drones pose is not hypothetical. With effective ranges easily reaching dozens of kilometres and loitering munitions able to strike with precision, the frontline is no longer a bright-line trench; it’s a wide, dangerous zone. Volunteers and medics operate in a corridor that some describe as up to 50 kilometres deep, within reach of guided unmanned systems, making any rescue operation a potentially lethal target.

Life’s Ordinary Bones, War’s Shifting Flesh

Declan, who volunteered in Kharkiv preparing meals for emergency services and hospitals, brought back stories of a city that has learned an uneasy double life. “Most nights missiles and drones came calling,” he recalls. “You get the alert on your phone and move like a practiced machine into cover. Then, five minutes later, someone’s buying bread. It’s surreal.”

Kharkiv’s streets, he says, are full of small rituals of survival. Old women sweep stoops, teenagers queue for coffee in bullet-scarred cafes, and once-a-week market stalls sell sunflower oil, loaves and warm pleasantries. Orthodox churches hold candlelit vigils, and in parks small shrines appear—photographs, flowers, a few candles—homemade altars to lives stopped too soon.

“I struggled with that normality,” Declan admits. “I’d be popping into a shop for crackers while air raid sirens pulsed through the city. You feel the cognitive dissonance—how does life continue next to the act of being destroyed?”

Human Threads and Hard Choices

Both men return to Ireland carrying more than photos and anecdotes. They carry names. They carry the weight of friendships formed under pressure. Oran speaks of colleagues who will never leave—a contrast that throws his own mobility into stark relief. “I can get on a plane. They can’t. It’s their home, their family. You see them in a trench or a bunker and you realise your sacrifice is different.”

That difference gnaws. For locals, staying is not an adventurous choice but a tethered duty. “We are defending everything we know,” a Kharkiv nurse told Declan as they ladled soup into steel bowls. “Leaving would be losing our history.”

For international volunteers, the calculus is different and often agonisingly simple: go, help, leave. Yet many of them find themselves bound in ways bureaucracy cannot quantify—by names, stories, the cadence of a city that fed them and trusted them. The Irish tricolour fluttering in Kyiv with the names of expatriates who died stands as a small, private testament to that binding, a shrine to connections that defy borders.

What This Means for Humanitarian Work Globally

Modern conflicts increasingly blur the line between combatants and civilians, between front and rear. The weaponisation of commercial technology—drones, encrypted communications, satellite-guided delivery systems—changes how humanitarian aid is delivered and who can safely deliver it.

Frontline lengths: The conflict’s active line across Ukraine now extends to more than 1,000 km, creating a vast, fragmented zone where civilians and aid workers are exposed.
Displacement: Millions have been uprooted, seeking refuge within Ukraine or abroad, creating sustained humanitarian needs for housing, healthcare and mental health support.
Technology’s double edge: Drones improve situational awareness for aid convoys but also expose them to targeted attacks, challenging the neutrality and safety traditionally afforded to ambulances and medical personnel.

“Humanitarian doctrine hasn’t kept pace with the technologies of modern war,” says an independent conflict analyst I spoke with. “We need new rules of engagement for unmanned systems, clearer protections for medical transports, and rapid, practical protocols for volunteers operating in contested airspaces.”

Small Actions, Big Echoes

In the end, the narrative that Oran and Declan bring home is stubbornly, beautifully human. It’s not a parade of victories or a manifesto of geopolitical analysis; it’s a ledger of little mercies. It’s a bowl of soup served to a nurse coming off a 12-hour shift. It’s a stretcher lifted by strangers who become family by force of necessity. It’s an Irish flag wrapped around names that no one should forget.

So what do we owe the people who stay? What responsibility do those of us who live far from conflict have toward those who remain tethered to war? These are uncomfortable questions. They ask us not only to marvel at bravery but to reconsider how we fund, protect and legislate humanitarian action in a world where the sky itself can be weaponised.

“You learn to be efficient, to be fast, to be kind in the smallest moments,” Oran says, softer now. “You also learn how fragile hope can be, and how necessary it is.”

If you met someone like Oran or Declan in a grocery queue tomorrow, would you ask where they’d been? Would you listen to their stories? And would you be ready to understand how a distant war has reshaped the geometry of compassion—so that saving one life often means racing against the hum of a machine in the sky?

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