SOCIETY
By the fourth year of the full-scale invasion, militarization has become widespread in Russian schools: teachers tell children that Ukrainians are “bad people,” show propaganda videos, promote military-patriotic movements, and drum up support for the “heroes” of the so-called “special military operation.” The Insider spoke with students and their parents in order to learn more about how children are affected by war propaganda, to find out what they really think about what’s happening, and to understand how they study in an atmosphere where references to the war have become routine.
The names of the sources have been changed for safety reasons.
Conversations about the war
“In primary school we didn’t talk about the war at all. But in 5th grade, it came up in almost every ‘Conversation.’ The teacher insists that Ukrainians are very bad people.” This is how Alyona, a 5th grader at a Moscow school, describes “Conversations About Important Things” — a weekly homeroom class introduced as a mandatory part of the school schedule in September 2022.
According to Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov, these classes are intended to “instill pride in Russia” and to encourage children to independently seek out historical facts. Topics include serving the homeland, examples of “worthy heroes,” and messages about the importance of “unity” — at least as it is defined in the Education Ministry’s guidelines. But according to Alyona, the lessons simply provoke aggression:
“We were told to make a poster that said, ‘Russia will stand to the end, we can’t be broken.’ After that, my classmate who’s Ukrainian started getting picked on. They call her names and tell her to go back to her country.”
According to Alyona, this mood is often reinforced by “educational materials” — photos, videos, and interactive content included in the class scripts: “She [the teacher] showed us examples from the internet of how we [Russians and Ukrainians] are different. Like, a Ukrainian [soldier] standing behind a baby stroller, and a Russian hiding it behind himself.”
An image shown in Alyona’s class reading “that’s the difference”
They also watched videos in Alyona’s classroom:
“They showed us a Ukrainian soldier. He said, ‘I went to war out of hatred. I was told you were monsters — only capable of killing and taking our land. But I was wrong. A Russian doctor treated me. He was kind, risked his life for me, and then I realized — I’m the monster, not you.’”
“I don’t know if the story was true, but it sounded believable,” Alyona muses.
Alyona says that most of her classmates do not enjoy these lessons. Still, being surrounded by talk of war has its effect.
Alyona says that most of her classmates do not enjoy these lessons. More often than not, however they don’t reflect on what they see — they simply adopt their parents’ views.
“My classmates definitely talk about what’s going on,” says Sasha, a sixth-grader at an elite school in Kazan. “Many say it’s the U.S.’s fault, that the U.S. president is egging Ukraine on, that everyone else is scum, Russia will definitely win, Crimea is ours — that kind of super-patriotic stuff.”
Svetlana, the mother of a ninth-grade student who transferred to homeschooling because of war propaganda, spoke of how some students get carried away by the wave of “patriotic” sentiment:
“One kid’s chat status said, ‘I hear the call — I storm Azov.’ That one is already cannon fodder, and once he turns 18, if all of this hasn’t ended by then, he’ll go fight. When drones were falling on us, the same kid said, ‘Give me a rifle, I’ll go bomb the khokhols [a slur for Ukrainians].’”
Similar attitudes are shared in the circle of Sergey, an eighth-grader at a Sochi lyceum: “Mostly from the younger grades through eighth, kids my age, they’re all for the war. But starting in ninth grade, not so much. There are a lot of vatniks [mindless “patriots”], but they’re like smart vatniks — they know what’s going on and make jokes about it.”
Older students find the clear contradictions in their teachers’ narratives to be more amusing than persuasive. Dmitry, a ninth-grader at a Kazan school, notes how his homeroom teacher got tangled up in her own explanations of the war:
“Over the past three years, there were moments when they said we’re fighting neo-Nazis. But me and some of the other normal kids noticed contradictions. Around September, she [the teacher] said we invaded to cleanse Ukraine of Nazis, but two or three months later she claimed we’re fighting for some valuable minerals in Zaporizhzhia and other occupied territories.”
Dmitry adds that despite her rhetoric, the teacher does not want to see her own family end up on the front line — “I won’t send my son or husband.”
Many “Conversations About Important Things” are tied to a state holiday — Cosmonautics Day, International Women’s Day, Defenders of the Fatherland Day. In all cases, the topics for each week are pre-approved and tailored by grade level. Initially, a whole class was devoted to the war in Ukraine, but this was quickly removed from the “recommendations” after media attention led to a backlash. Still, students frequently encounter information about the war as part of lessons that are officially dedicated to other topics.
For example, in honor of Defenders of the Fatherland Day, teachers draw parallels between World War II veterans and today’s “heroes of the special military operation.” In a video interview prepared for the class, participants discussed the enemies that are supposedly trying to divide or destroy Russians. According to the official recommendations, after watching the video, teachers were to explain to students that those fighting in Ukraine today are modern-day defenders of the fatherland who possess the same qualities as their heroic predecessors: courage, responsibility, honesty, decency, justice, loyalty, and devotion to the homeland.
Incidentally, materials were also developed to talk about one’s “small homeland” — meaning the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Teacher’s Day falls near the anniversary of the date when Russia used illegitimate referendums to justify its annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The guide for this “Conversation” suggests beginning with a mention of the “historic date,” and teachers are instructed to emphasize to children that “the residents of these historically Russian lands voted almost unanimously to join Russia.”
In many regions, teachers decide for themselves what to focus on, meaning stories about the war in Ukraine are often told independent of official guidelines. For example, in the Bryansk region, “Conversations About Important Things” were held under the slogan “‘SMO’: For Faith, Freedom, and Honor.” Students watched the documentary film titled “Why Russia Launched the ‘SMO’ in Ukraine.” In the Orenburg Region, they were told about the “goals and tasks” of the “special operation.”
Sixth-grader Sasha says many “Conversations” really do revolve around holidays. Students are shown interviews with people linked to the theme in some way, but the stories of war correspondents and “SMO” participants are never far away.
“They show us interviews with soldiers fighting right now — how cool it is, we serve the motherland, we’re heroes. They show clips of shooting. There was also a video about ‘What’s good about being a military reporter.’ Recently there was an interview with one — a military reporter, a Hero of Russia. Then we had to answer questions like: ‘What qualities do you think this person has? How can you aspire to be like him?’”
This turned out to be a video featuring military correspondent and pro-war propagandist Evgeniy Poddubny, who has been sanctioned by the EU and several other countries for “spreading disinformation and pro-Kremlin propaganda about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Military-patriotic games and “kindness campaigns”
“Conversations About Important Things” take place on Monday mornings, and every school week starts with a flag-raising ceremony.
“Each class takes turns raising the national flag over the course of the year, and the principal raises the Soviet flag. He usually fastens it, and some boys help raise it along with the Russian flag. He says he remembers those times well,” says Alyona, a 5th grader.
The ceremony follows military-style commands: “Attention! Stand still! Line up!” says Sasha, a sixth-grader. Everything is done by the book as intended by the Education Ministry. “We have several parallel classes, and about once every three months one class raises the flag and we sing the anthem in the auditorium. First the 5th grades, then 6th, then 8th — and so on throughout the year.”
Usually, the flag is raised by students who have demonstrated high levels of achievement in academic, athletic, creative, or civic endeavors. Schools often highlight their exploits in social media posts. For example, School No. 2065 in New Moscow describes its Monday lineup like this: “This honorable mission is entrusted to the best of the best — active volunteers, participants in school events, and outstanding Yunarmiya [Youth Army] members. They proudly carried our country’s symbol, showing patriotism and devotion to the Motherland.”
Photos from the webpage of School No. 2065 in Moscow
Photos from the webpage of School No. 2065 in Moscow
At Moscow school No. 1095, the tone is similar: “Each time, the students eagerly await the announcement of the flag-bearing group. For every one of our pupils, it’s a great honor.”
Students are also involved in other patriotic events: sports competitions, shooting practice, military-themed board games, concerts, and contests. In November 2024, schoolchildren in Vladivostok participated in “A Day on the Frontline.” They learned how to load rifles, put on gas masks, and provide first aid. In March 2025, kids in Balashikha, located just outside of Moscow, did much the same at the “Young Hero” games.
Military game in Balashikha
Bbnews
“We have a sports competition once a year — you have to march, shoot, load and unload weapons. Each class has to send five students,” says sixth-grader Sasha.
Svetlana, the mother of a ninth-grade girl, says her daughter was also pressured to take part in patriotic games, but she firmly refused:
“There were all sorts of contests — military songs, marching drills, more than once. My daughter wouldn’t do it. When they took her out of algebra class to march, she texted me: ‘What should I do? They might force me.’ I’m a pacifist — I was a hippie, and I’m raising my child the same way. No militarism is acceptable to us. She said, ‘My mom won’t let me march, so I won’t,’ and they let her go.”
Alongside these games and contests, there is heavy encouragement for students to join military-patriotic groups — Yunarmiya and the “Movement of the First,” a kind of new Pioneer movement. “They sent us links several times asking us to join the Movement of the First, and there’s a huge poster in school,” says ninth-grader Dmitry. “The teachers insist that we sign up — not with outright threats like, ‘We’ll give you a failing grade,’ but they pressure us in a soft, indirect way.”
A propaganda poster encouraging students to join military-patriotic movements at Dmitry’s school
According to Svetlana, the mother of a ninth-grade student, some parents actually respond quite positively to this kind of campaigning:
“Parents are either very passive or extremely patriotic. At least two boys joined the Yunarmiya unit that was formed in our class, and many moms were thrilled — they thought it was great the kids would learn discipline. Now there are five kids in the unit, and we only have 19 in the class.”
Teachers also push for participation in Zarnitsa 2.0, a role-playing game promoted by the Movement of the First. Players are expected to “operate drones, work with radio stations, and identify false information,” but in practice, they act out the roles of commanders, war correspondents, combat engineers, medics, UAV operators, and even stormtroopers in improvised battle scenarios. In some regions, students were effectively forced to apply.
“As far as I know, it’s our social studies teacher who’s urging people to sign up. I checked the Zarnitsa website — it’s a full-on militarized sports game. We had Zarnitsa in our time too, but it was more like a detective game. Now kids are sappers, shooters — basically soldiers. Our children are being raised in an internment environment. That’s why I pulled my child out of school. The prospect of someone messing with my child’s head outweighed all other concerns,” says Svetlana, the ninth-grader’s mother.
The pressure on schoolchildren increases even more when it comes to producing material aid for participants in the “special military operation” or for drawing up greeting cards and letters to boost their morale. Teachers eagerly promote these “kind acts.” For example, at Moscow school No. 1095, children made trench candles and wrote letters to soldiers — at one school in the Rostov Region, they made as many as 250 candles.
“We were actively asked to send parcels with food, medicine, and hygiene items, but hardly anyone did. The teachers wrote: ‘Look how shameless our students are!’ There were only two boxes of pasta sitting there. After that, they came down on the parents, and then the parents started doing it for the kids,” says eighth-grader Sergey.
According to him, they were also forced to write letters to soldiers, but none of the students took it seriously: “We had to write New Year’s greetings, but my friend just took the sheet, and I handed in a blank one. I don’t think anything came of it — maybe we got a failing grade in technology class [for that day], that’s all. A couple of times they gave us an ultimatum to draw greeting cards.”
Sergey recalls it was much harder to get out of writing an essay on the topic “What you see as the future of our Motherland.” As he explained with a laugh, “My classmates wrote that Russia would take over the world and thrive. I had to joke my way through conversations with them, though I was tempted to write that Ukraine would annex Russia.”
War participants in schools
A significant part of school propaganda involves face-to-face meetings with soldiers. “Heroes” of the war in Ukraine are regularly called upon to speak about their “valiant deeds.” One such guest was invited to a school in the Vologda Region to “reveal the whole truth about what’s happening.” In the Tambov Region, another spoke “about the courage and strength of those participating in the special operation.” There are hundreds of such invitations.
At School No. 30 in Tambov, a participant in the so-called “special military operation” spoke to third graders.
A statement about such a visit on a school website in the Kemerovo Region reads: “During the talk, the ‘SMO’ participants spoke about the special operation’s importance in fighting neo-Nazism, about combat situations, and the courage and heroism of their comrades. They emphasized that their actions are driven by love for their homeland and fellow citizens.”
According to tenth-grader Nastia, “We had ‘veterans’ visit us, but the actual participant didn’t speak — some woman did the talking for him. I don’t remember much, but she definitely said there’s no reason to be afraid of guys from the ‘SMO’ — they’re just like us. She said it’s important to make eye contact when speaking to them and not to flinch if you see them on the street.”
From the website of a school in Kemerovo
Veterans of World War II, Afghanistan, or the Chechen campaigns are also mobilized to speak with students, but as eighth-grader Sergey says, those guests also tend to talk about the current war:
“We had veterans who fought in Afghanistan. They got all kinds of questions, and it was awful. They behaved horribly, addressed everyone like soldiers, and used the word ‘khokhly’ several times. The funniest part was that they accidentally called the ‘SMO’ a ‘war’ a few times and then quickly corrected themselves. Literally, one of them said, ‘These khokhly hide in schools — it’s f**king computer wars. Some nerd sits there sending drones — come out with a Kalashnikov if you’re a real man.’”
“It started with Chernobyl and ended with how ‘the khokhly are trying to rewrite history, but we are Russians, and God is with us,’” Sergey says, disgusted.
“We struck on the 22nd, and they were going to attack us on the 23rd and take over. They would’ve reached Crimea, and we’d be gone by then. How they tricked us! We were already near Kyiv — on the outskirts, we’d taken half of Ukraine,” said one Chernobyl veteran who was invited to speak to Sergey’s class (Sergey recorded the speech, and the editorial team is in possession of the audio).
These events usually happen in the school auditorium about twice a month, says Sergey. When no veterans are available, students are shown propaganda videos or are asked to recite poems about war. “At the last one we saw was some patriotic speech by Nikita Mikhalkov [a pro-Kremlin film director], and before that, they showed weird AI-generated videos of WWII monuments coming to life.”
Now, however, the “veterans” of the war in Ukraine are not only instructing students through their “heroic” stories — they are becoming teachers in the literal sense. Since September 2024, the school curriculum for basic safety and life skills (more commonly known in Russia by the acronym “OBZh”) has been updated to include a module on basic military training. Even more troubling, participants in the so-called “special operation” are allowed to lead such lessons.
According to Deputy Defense Minister Anna Tsivileva — a distant cousin of Vladimir Putin — “more than 3,500 ‘SMO’ veterans are now involved in raising children and young people; the heroes are meeting with them in schools, colleges, and universities.” These “future teachers” are supposed to complete retraining courses, often with support from Tsivileva’s Defenders of the Fatherland foundation. Similar programs, such as “My Hero,” have also been launched with the aim of getting more veterans into schools.
What it will mean to place the upbringing of children in the hands of recently demobilized combatants remains to be seen, but based on crime statistics involving such veterans, the outlook is bleak. Veronika, the mother of a tenth-grader from Murino School in the Leningrad region, shared her experience. As part of the school program, her son was sent to a camp where students were trained in basic military skills.
“The teacher called and told me about the program. I asked, ‘Is it mandatory?’ He said, ‘Yes, or you won’t pass.’ Only a medical exemption would work, and since we didn’t have one, my son had to go. Former Wagner guys were the instructors. My son said that when the kids weren’t paying close enough attention, one of the instructors flew into a rage and screamed that by 2030, they’d all be rotting in the trenches. Why 2030, who knows?”
According to Veronika, the kids spent a full week at the camp undergoing nonstop military training: “They had general combat prep, marching drills, engineering tasks like digging trenches, and lessons in battlefield medicine. They ran exercises, took apart Kalashnikovs, practiced putting on gas masks — they even pumped something into the tent so the kids could ‘feel the atmosphere.’ I have no idea what it was.”
There was also a heavy dose of political propaganda straight out of a Soviet commissar’s handbook: “A life safety teacher went along as a chaperone, but the rest were locals. One guy from the FSB was supposed to teach them military regulations, but instead he just ranted about how liberalism is dangerous, how enemies are everywhere — that sort of thing.”