Students returning to Russian schools this week will discover a change to their civics courses that puts military training at the heart of the lessons, as Bloomberg reports (paywalled).
The mandatory classes for teenagers include learning about the main types of armaments including machine guns, anti-tank weapons and hand grenades, as well as emergency field medicine and general military discipline. While some of the skills were previously taught in limited high school modules, the new version escalates this training for children as young as 13.
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Although some of these skills were previously taught as part of limited modules in upper grades, the new version of the program expands this training to children aged 13 and older.
"The updated curriculum, approved by the Ministry of Education, requires half of the weekly classes within the course "Fundamentals of the Security and Defense of the Homeland" to be devoted to basic military training," Bloomberg says.
"This is part of the gradual militarization of Russian schools, aimed at shaping a new generation of conscripts, while the Kremlin continues its war in Ukraine, which has already been ongoing for the fifth year."
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In addition to training in weapons handling and combat tactics, basic military training includes lessons on Russia’s national security doctrine and the structure of the armed forces. Students will also study mines and explosive hazards, first aid for combat injuries, chemical and radiation exposure and acute stress, as well as survival skills and procedures for operating in conflict zones.
The education reform effectively contributes to creating a flow of potential conscripts from schools into the army. This is reinforced by the involvement of combat veterans from the war in Ukraine in schools and kindergartens, where they speak with children, urging them to support Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion in 2022.
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“The romanticization of war and violence, combined with a constant fear of external enemies, instills in young people the idea that human life holds no value and that dying for the regime and the president is normal,” says Pavel Talankin, an exiled Russian teacher who co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin that focused on rising war propaganda in his school, according to Bloomberg.“If necessary, one must die for the motherland, taking up the flag and marching into the line of fire without asking questions.”
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Russia [also] continues to scale up practices of militarizing children in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, turning teenagers into a mobilization resource for future wars.
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If I was a Russian parent of a teen boy I'd be desperately trying to find a cousin Kazakhstan or Armenia to send them to "visit". They'll be drafting 16year olds soon, just like 1945
I have a Russian friend with teenage kids. I offered to host them for a while and they weren’t interested. I guess sending your kids off to be strangers in a strange land without you is not an easy decision to make.
I guess not, but do they not think conscription is coming ? Or are they just not thinking about the war at all ?
🤷 I dunno what they’re thinking in detail. I get plenty of discussion on how the family’s doing and grandma’s health problems etc but if they have any opinions on war and desertion they’re not putting it in writing on WhatsApp
My understanding is that those in the cities still feel mostly untouched by the war. Perhaps they are urbanites.
With warehouse and oil infrastructure strikes - as well as fuel and goods shortages - the war is also present in cities. Recruitment posters and aggressive military propaganda are everywhere even in St. Petersburg and Moscow - and signup bonuses are much higher the wealthier a city is in order for this incentive to be effective everywhere. Universities, schools and workplaces are aggressively recruiting people of all ages and genders based on ever increasing recruitment quotas, often pressuring members of vulnerable groups into signing up - or by simply signing them up without their knowledge. Students can't even retake university exams without "volunteering" for the military anymore.
Urbanites are not safe anymore.
Naturally, military contracts are a scam: People are being promised positions in the rear, extensive training and limited contracts, but even university graduates are being sent to meatwave squadrons instead of the promised headquarters or drone units and contracts are routinely extended by the military every year. Meanwhile, unit commanders force fresh recruits to hand over their signup bonuses in order to not be tortured, killed or sent on suicide missions. As soon as they run out of money, they've lost their usefulness and are sent out to die. Ukrainian drone kill cams are showing just as many young, fit Slavic men (and even increasingly women) as the older men and minorities that used to make up a much larger part of the cannon fodder. That's on top of the abhorrent institutionalized hazing (involving often deadly abuse and rape) the Russian military has been notorious for for centuries.