Ukrainian woman with bandaged eye now running art classes

Back teaching after operation to save her sight: Ukrainian woman whose bandaged eye and bloodied face were beamed around the world is now running art classes for refugees in Poland

• Images of Olena Kurylo’s bandaged face were beamed around the world
• Three months after her operation in Poland, Olena has gone back to teaching 
• With a saddening inevitability, she said the children are ‘drawing the war’

A Ukrainian teacher blinded in a Russian missile attack has returned to the classroom after The Mail on Sunday helped her flee the warzone to undergo an operation to save her sight.

Images of Olena Kurylo’s bandaged face were beamed around the world in the early days of Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine.

Now, three months after her operation in Poland, Olena has gone back to teaching and is running volunteer art classes for young Ukrainian refugees.

‘I forget I am in Poland and my worries disappear when I do this,’ beamed Olena, 52, as she spoke from her makeshift classroom. ‘I have a lot of love in my soul and I want to give it to the children.

‘They give me a joy I haven’t had since the war started.’

A Ukrainian teacher blinded in a Russian missile attack has returned to the classroom after The Mail on Sunday helped her flee the warzone to undergo an operation to save her sight

Images of Olena Kurylo’s bandaged face were beamed around the world in the early days of Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine

With a saddening inevitability, she said the children are ‘drawing the war’, adding: ‘They either draw the war or how their life was before with their house or their mother and father as well as their dreams and hopes for peace. The girls prefer pictures of their mothers and the boys draw war machines.’

The mother, who is half-Russian, was left with glass lodged inside her right eye and hundreds of particles embedded in her skin following the assault on her home in the city of Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine. 

After the MoS helped her escape the besieged city, skilled surgeons in Katowice, Poland, managed to restore a significant portion of her vision by filling her damaged eye with silicone oil.

Olena is awaiting the results of a second follow-up procedure, which medics hope will almost fully restore her vision.

‘It could take just two months,’ Olena said.

Now, three months after her operation in Poland, Olena has gone back to teaching and is running volunteer art classes for young Ukrainian refugees

‘Or I may need to have three more surgeries. That’s the worst possible outcome.

‘But since the moment I decided to come to Poland, I always had hope and that has never disappeared. I believe I will get all of my vision back, or at least most of it.’

Olena said she was battling post-traumatic stress and suffers nightmares.

She added: ‘I want to go back home.

‘But I can only go back when things get better – and even then I may have to live in the west of Ukraine.’

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