KYIV: Russia’s full-scale military aggression against Ukraine, deep into its third year, is adversely affecting students learning Japanese by causing blackouts.

“Power outages at night stop us from studying Japanese,” a 15-year-old high school girl of Kyiv Gymnasium of Oriental Languages #1 said in Japanese on Friday.

The gymnasium is an institution that integrates elementary to high school education, specializing in teaching languages in Asia and Middle East. Of about 1,000 students, 300 study Japanese. The student also said, “I enjoy Japanese literature, and I like works by Haruki Murakami.”

In Kyiv, rolling blackouts are implemented due to serious power shortages caused by intensifying Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian power plants.

The student is studying difficult “kanji” characters as she hopes to travel to Japan someday. But she has to stop studying during blackouts.

A Japanese-language teacher at the school explained that the school has only three teachers of Japanese, down from five before the war, and that it is hard to maintain teaching courses.

Gymnasium leader Oksana Proskura asked for support necessary to provide education such as repairing school buildings, saying that “more than 150 people who didn’t leave Ukraine during the war…keep working in the bomb shelters.”

On Friday, Japanese company officials visiting Kyiv for business negotiations inspected the gymnasium.

Speaking to Ukrainians, Japan External Trade Organization President Susumu Kataoka said, “Please keep in mind that we Japan is always with you.”

JIJI Press