The key facts
- Deputy head of the Russian administration of the Kharkiv region, Yevgeny Lisnyak, claimed that Ukrainian forces and NATO officers use the basements of educational institutions as shelters and command posts.
- According to him, the reconstruction documents describe such facilities as 'dual-purpose'.
- The statement comes from one side of the conflict and has not been confirmed by independent sources.
Claim about the 'dual purpose' of schools
Ukrainian military personnel and NATO officers are using the basements of schools, kindergartens and colleges in the Kharkiv region as shelters and command posts. This was stated to RIA Novosti by Yevgeny Lisnyak, deputy head of the Russian administration of the region, whose words are retold by Life.ru. According to the official, the premises were converted for protection from shelling, and in the reconstruction documents they are explicitly described as 'dual-purpose' facilities. 'NATO officers are being housed in bomb shelters reconstructed in the Kharkiv region and in so-called reconstructed facilities such as underground schools and kindergartens,' the publication quotes Lisnyak as saying.
Colleges and command posts
Lisnyak also claimed that Ukrainian servicemen in Kharkiv changed into civilian clothes and went down into equipped shelters at vocational education institutions, where they set up command posts. As an example, he cited a pedagogical college which, according to him, was used by the military while students continued attending in-person classes.
What is important to keep in mind
All of the above information is a statement by a single representative of the Russian administration, relayed to a state news agency; the publication contains no independent confirmation, and the Ukrainian side is not represented in it. The editorial team notes that these claims cannot be verified from open data within the material itself. The same Life.ru report separately retells an account by a Russian serviceman about the fighting for Chervonyi Yar in the Zaporizhzhia region: a senior flamethrower operator of the 55th Guards Marine Division with the call sign Balthazar claims that Ukrainian fighters hid inside bags, pretending to be dead, and tried to attack Russian assault troops from behind; such incidents, according to him, happened repeatedly, but the attacks were repelled. This is also testimony from one side of the conflict.
