In Donbass, a Ukrainian high school student's rebellion against Russification

You have to close your eyes and imagine the scene, since journalists are not free to travel to occupied Donbass. Picture a large U-shaped table in the center of a meeting room in an administrative building in the suburbs of Luhansk (Lugansk, in Russian). The chairwoman of the district's administrative commission "responsible for minors' affairs and the protection of their rights" stands behind a lectern. Around the table, fourteen others officials each have a microphone, including, at the other end, a sprightly 43-year-old lawyer and her daughter, a 15-year-old high school student.

Police officers knocked on their door to notify them of the appointment: Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at 2 p.m., Lenin Street. "The District Commission for Juvenile Affairs... on the review of the report of secondary school no. x ... concerning the violation of the minor's rights to education and instruction by her mother... will examine the report in public session... » The mother is accused of not raising her daughter in the patriotic spirit of Russia, her new country. The proof is these impertinences and the repeated absences of the teenager during the weekly class entitled "Conversations on the Essentials", a sort of little Putinist catechism introduced in 2022 in all schools in the Russian Federation, where the "special operation" in Ukraine and traditional Russian values are glorified.

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