Angelina Jolie visits underground schools in Kharkiv, where children study amid Russian attacks

“In Ukraine, children are returning to school amid intensified attacks on civilians and infrastructure, and I visited teachers, coaches and neighbors who are keeping them safe,” Jolie wrote on Instagram.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lies close to the Russian border and is regularly targeted by Russian strikes. Classrooms have been built in metro stations, while some schools operate entirely underground.

“Small children learn to read three stories below ground,” Jolie wrote.

During her visit, Jolie met young dancers from the Karamel dance studio, who train in an underground facility in Kharkiv’s heavily damaged northern Saltivka district. She also visited the Aza Nizi Maza art studio, which works with children with developmental disabilities.

Jolie later traveled to the Gen.Ukrainian rehabilitation center in the Carpathian Mountains, where she met women raising children while waiting for their husbands to return from Russian captivity.

She also paid tribute to Oleksii Yukov, head of the Platsdarm search group, who worked to recover the bodies of fallen soldiers. Yukov died in August after being fatally wounded while exhuming bodies near the front line.

Jolie has visited Ukraine several times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. In November 2025, she traveled to the southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv, visiting medical and educational facilities adapted to protect people from Russian attacks.