After Russian forces occupied her town near Kyiv in the early days of the February 2022 invasion, 14-year-old Ukrainian student Tanya Bondarchuk remembers feeling shocked and in disbelief.
Her parents woke her abruptly and said the war had started.
“Later, I got up and really understood that the war had begun,” she told The Hill. “While my parents collected documents, food and clothes that we need, I just sat and cried. I really didn’t know what to do in the situation because I was a little girl and did not understand the political situation in our country.”
Ukrainian soldiers have since reclaimed the Kyiv region around her town, Katyuzhanka. And Bondarchuk herself has now joined the fight against Russia: She’s part of a group of students building drone parts for the military, working from a unique school program funded by private American dollars.
The program is a window into how Ukraine’s youths are defending and rebuilding their country against the Russian invasion, an overlooked but vital part of the Ukrainian mission.
Colleen Denny, the regional director of Europe for the American nonprofit organization Spirit of America, said Russia has destroyed roughly 10 percent of schools across Ukraine in missile attacks that she claims are purposely aimed at educational infrastructure.
“This is a deliberate targeting of Ukrainian youth so that it will hurt Ukraine’s opportunities to continue developing the future and hurt their future human capital,” she said.
But Denny said Ukrainian students are fighting back: now, by supporting Ukraine’s current needs, and in the future through long-term projects and skill-building.
“I truly see this as a way to help Ukraine win the peace after the war. We talk about winning the war, but then also winning the peace that follows it,” she said. “And by enabling the young generation now — they are the generation that will be responsible for rebuilding Ukraine — we think we will reap huge returns on investment for post-conflict Ukraine.”
The program, called UActive, was spearheaded by Spirt of America and the Ukrainian charity group savED, which aims to rebuild schools and keep education alive across Ukraine.
UActive is built to ensure students find out how to get involved in their communities and learn business and design thinking, and to prepare the next generation for rebuilding Ukraine and managing a war-torn country.
Anna Novosad, the founder of savED, said the students are often “psychologically affected” by the war but have shown resolve in working for their communities and country, noting that when the program started, some students “were really in really bad emotional shape.”
“But within the eight-week program, they transformed incredibly,” Novosad said.
“Some kids who lived through occupation” are supporting “a potential Ukrainian victory,” she continued. “This is not just blah, blah, about civic education. This is like, they can do real things.”
The idea for UActive, funded in its first year by $150,000 donated to Spirit of America, was borne out of talks between the American nonprofit and savED. It came to life in October 2022.
UActive is spread across five high schools in the Chernihiv and Kyiv regions, with close to 100 students participating. The program is expected to expand to more locations next year.
Under the program, students form a team of 10 or 12 at their school and brainstorm for weeks before they pitch an idea to win $5,000 in grant funding. The winning teams work closely with teachers and mentors from the assisting nonprofits to oversee project completion.
Students have helped their communities in various ways — overseeing the construction and renovation of sports fields and assembly halls and creating a coworking space that allows for the training of mine safety and first aid.
A project in the town of Mykhailo-Kotsiubynske also directly benefits the military: Students helped create a rehabilitation center for wounded Ukrainian soldiers and veterans.
The drone project — now a major success story for UActive — had an unlikely start.
Ukrainian students behind the idea initially failed to win the $5,000 grant to go ahead with the project. The winning team drafted a plan to renovate a theater hall near the Kyiv-area school, Katyuzhanka Lyceum.
But students behind the drone manufacturing were determined and continued to work with a mentor to realize their efforts.
They were eventually sent to Lviv, in western Ukraine, to meet with information technology experts and companies to refine the project. Before long, they had secured funding from the Ukrainian private sector for the project at their school.
In six months, students have created 6,000 drone parts, according to the team.
Ironically, the students in the drone program are working out of a classroom that was used by Russian forces as an interrogation room. Spirit of America and savED said the town of Katyuzhanka was used as a command center for Russia before troops were forced to retreat during a Ukrainian counterattack that pushed them out of the west in the spring of 2022.
Spirit of America’s founder and CEO Jim Hake noticed the success of the drone project.
“At Spirit of America we work hard to quantify impact and return on investment. But the most important things about our work can’t be measured,” he wrote in a letter. “Ultimately, our work is about the kind of world we want our children to live in. It’s about what America stands for: preserving the promise of a free and better life.”
The drone parts are built from a 3D printer before they are sent to the front lines. Two brigades of Ukrainian soldiers on the front have worked closely with the students, according to savED.
Denny, from Spirit of America, said the parts the students build can be just a $10 piece — but they become an invaluable component in drones with a price tag of $5,000 or more.
“What the students are doing has huge returns on investment for these surveillance drones and for the front-line troops that they’re sending them to,” she said.
The drones are generally for surveillance, but they can have a wide range of attachment capabilities, including potentially for lethal use.
The Russia-Ukraine war has highlighted the importance of drone warfare, with surveillance drones monitoring movements being one big reason for the stalemate, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Ukraine has received drones from Western allies but is also pushing to manufacture more drones in-house. The Ukrainian fundraising project, United24, which has raised more than $500 million, includes a major effort for drone procurement.
Novosad, from savED, said some people have questioned why students are participating in a program to build drone parts that can be used on the battlefield. But she noted the children came up with the idea themselves and were adamant about it, even after the proposal did not win an initial grant.
“Kids are also not supposed to live under Russian occupation,” she said in defense of the program. “These kids have lived through a lot and they want to [have a connection] to victory.”
Bondarchuk, who was 13 when Russian soldiers stormed her town, said the occupation felt like a “zombie apocalypse” with troops everywhere and a lot of looting and destruction.
After Ukrainian troops reclaimed the region, Bondarchuk at first resumed schooling from her basement as residents worked to clean up the school.
When UActive was brought to her school in the fall of 2022, Bondarchuk, who wants to be a graphic designer when she grows up, was immediately drawn to the pitch to create drone parts and other items through 3D printing.
“The project seemed incredible to me,” she said.
Bondarchuk said participating in the drone program makes her feel part of the defense of her country.
“I’m really happy that I can help my country … to win this war,” she said. “War is very terrible, and I want to help my country.”
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