When Dmytro Serebrianskyi returned to Ukraine’s State Tax University in the city of Irpin after it was freed from Russian forces, he barely recognised the place where he had spent years of his career.
“Those spaces and rooms I had been using for my work and my education, such as my master’s and PhD, were completely damaged and burned out,” he said.
Serebrianskyi was appointed the university’s rector in December 2022, months after Russian forces swept through Irpin, a city just 20 kilometres northwest of Kyiv, in the first few weeks of the full-scale invasion.
By the time Ukrainian forces recaptured Irpin, about half of the university, which is Ukraine's only institution dedicated to training public servants in taxation and public finance and has about 5,000 students, had been damaged or destroyed. Its main administrative building, dormitories and sports complex were gutted. Images show shattered windows and debris-strewn corridors.
Four years on, temporary repairs have allowed students to attend classes. But the university is undergoing a massive rebuilding effort, one of Ukraine’s most ambitious higher education reconstruction projects to date.
