Students in Saint Petersburg, Russia, celebrated the end of the school year last night as part of the annual White Nights Festival.

The celebration was accompanied by a large-scale fireworks display amid a ship with crimson sails, which slowly made its way along the English and Admiralty bridges to the Winter Palace. This year’s celebrations were held against the backdrop of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine, which has led to mounting military and civilian casualties.

A group of school graduates from Mariupol, which was an area of fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, participated in the celebration.