Sevastopol teacher loses job after arranging colored balloons to resemble Ukrainian flag

An elementary school teacher in Sevastopol lost her job after she decorated her classroom with Ukrainian-flag-colored balloons on the first day of school. According to the local news outlet ForPost, students' parents bought balloons of various colors to decorate the room, and the teacher intentionally arranged the yellow and blue ones in pairs.

“There wasn’t really any Ukrainian propaganda at all,” said school director Irina Klimova. “The only thing was some Ukrainian symbolism — she moved the balloons so that the yellow and blue would be together. And there was a drawing from a child that said ‘Happy September 1!’ in Ukrainian. But she didn’t mention anything about Ukraine in the lesson.”

A picture taken during the class provoked outrage among parents. Soon after, the 60-year-old teacher left her job at the school “of her own accord,” local media reported. 

“Even though I fired her, I’m still going to defend the teacher,” said the school director. “She’s a lonely person, she put her entire life into the school, and then this happens. And I don’t know how she’s going to survive it all. She and I sat down together yesterday and chatted for two and a half hours. She’s a good teacher, but something happened here, some kind of burnout.”