Antonina Sidorenko has put on her favorite clothes, picked the most beautiful ribbon for her hair and can recite her teacher’s poem by heart.

But with classes taking place at home, to the accompaniment of gunshots and grenades in the background, this is no ordinary first day of school for the nine-year-old Ukrainian.

Sitting behind a desk in the middle of her living room, “Tonia” adjusts the phone screen, which shows her teacher Natalia Vasylivna, her best friend Igor, and other classmates she hasn’t seen since the Russian invasion in February.

“I’m happy to be back in school but I would be even happier if there wasn’t a war because I miss my teacher and my friends,” she told AFP, saying her best friend fled to Poland.

Antonina, five-year-old sister Sonia, and parents Natalia and Andriy live in Pokrovke, a hamlet of 24 people in the southern Mykolaiv region near the front line.

Distance learning is taking place across the region due to the fighting.

This presented significant technical challenges for Natalia and Andriy, and they only managed to configure the Zoom app on their mobile phone a few days before September 1, when schools across the country returned.

They also made sure the internet router was working. After their electricity was cut off in the summer, the family gets their power from a solar panel provided by an NGO.

But they can do little against cannons. Periodically, the roar of Ukrainian artillery fire echoes, followed by the Russian response. Two days earlier, their kitchen windows were smashed by shrapnel.

Antonina, a young girl with light blonde pigtails, has stopped twitching when the sounds of war echo in the distance.

“In the beginning, when shells were falling near the house, I always hid and lay on the ground. But now that it’s far away, I’m used to it and I’m not afraid,” she said.

As her teacher tries to grapple with Zoom, Antonia shows off the space she shares with Sonia.

“Now we’ll sleep on the floor so we won’t be killed by the shrapnel,” she said.

In the yard she feeds the rabbits, her favorite animals. The rabbits, a pig and two cows are the reason why the family stays put despite the danger.

The pig owes its survival to the erratic power supply, which makes it impossible to preserve any chops, Natalia explained.

“What would we do in the city? Where would we stay, how would we live?” Andriy asked, showing the damage left by the last blow, as another explosive sound was heard behind him.

“Did you hear that? It never ends!”

Andriy said selling all his belongings would bring him 15,000 hryvnia ($406), while a house even in the next village, Novooleksandrivka, costs at least 100,000 hryvnia.

When the bombardment gets too heavy, the family flees in their car for a while before peace returns to their neighborhood.

“You have to be like a soldier: stay together, be ready, pack everything, be quick, don’t hesitate, listen to the parents, pack your bags and go,” said Natalia.

The 33-year-old appreciates her daughter and is proud of her good results and her artistic talent, which she believes Tonia inherited from her father.

But behind the calm exterior, Natalia admits that despite her best efforts not to panic, she is very worried about her children.

She refuses to go, saying she worked hard to build the house and save money for her daughters’ future.

The mother believes that returning to school will soon fail. Tonia’s teacher still hasn’t managed to configure Zoom, but her young student is taking advantage of the delay to chat with her longtime friend Igor.

Tonia insists on reciting the poem she has memorized.

“Peace will come to Ukraine. Good people want peace. Adults and children strive for peace on earth.”