A program broadcast on Russian public television a few weeks ago shows a group of primary school children, between six and eight years old, standing at attention in front of a soldier who had served on the Ukrainian front. “Check your uniform,” he ordered them, as he says. a chronicle of Wall Street Journal. “Buckles should face forward.” The episode occurred in the Kursk region, bordering Ukraine, and summarizes the educational reorientation promoted by the Kremlin.
Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, especially, after the 2022 invasion, Russian schools have incorporated military instruction at practically all levels. The shift has accelerated as the war heads into four years and as the Russian Administration prepares students for future war scenarios.
In secondary school, weapons handling, previously optional, is now a mandatory subject. Teenagers learn military discipline and techniques for assembling a Kalashnikov rifle or piloting drones. To this will be added new history textbooks that will present the West as a strategic enemy and Ukraine as a subordinate state.
The mobilization of active soldiers has become a pillar of the plan. The president himself Vladimir Putin He stated in December 2023 that “wars are won by teachers,” and urged combatants to enter the classrooms. Their applications to work as teachers are processed through the fast track.
Some experts warn that this strategy seeks to mold a loyal generation willing to take up arms without questioning the authority of the State. The political scientist Ekaterina Schulman explained to Wall Street Journal that, according to the Kremlin’s logic, if minors are correctly indoctrinated “they will be cheaper and more effective soldiers.” The researcher Ian Garner maintains that the official intention is to prepare children “ideologically and psychologically” for war.
The turn is not limited to Russian territory. An investigation of Kyiv Independent details that senior officials direct training programs for Ukrainian minors from occupied areas.
These activities, organized by the Guerrero Center —created in 2022 by direct order of Vladimir Putin—, take place in camps in the Volgograd region.
The young people carry out combat exercises, learn to handle drones, grenades and light weapons and receive instruction from veterans from Chechnya, Syria or Donbas, such as Andranik Gasparyancurrent commander of the center, or Igor Vorobyovresponsible for its local headquarters.
The pressure on minors is complemented by messages that praise sacrifice and discipline. Television presenters close to power, such as Vladimir Soloviovthey repeat that life is oriented toward combat. “Hero desks” dedicated to former students who died in Ukraine have been set up in numerous schools.
The repressive climate reaches those who dissent. Teachers who refuse to teach militarized content have faced criminal proceedings. A teacher from Moscow, Natalia Taranushenkowas sentenced to seven years in prison after telling her students about the abuses committed by Russian troops. Her luck was that she left the country before being arrested.
Nothing escapes the police state. The singer Diana Loginova18, was arrested in Saint Petersburg for interpreting versions of authors critical of the Kremlin and has served several prison sentences since then.
In 2024, the Kremlin allocated more than 50 billion rubles (more than 500 million euros) to patriotic programs and another four billion (about 43 million) to provide 23,000 schools with replica weapons and drone kits. In the occupied areas of Ukraine, Ukrainian-language textbooks have been withdrawn and National History has disappeared from the schedules.