Campaign to force Ukrainian children to love Russia

Being taught to love Russia begins early for children in occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine.

In a nursery in Luhansk, more than 70 young people are arranged, holding a long black -orange Russian military banner in the form of letter Z, a symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the city, seven girls are jumping up and down and gestures in front of a Russian flag for the bold song “I am Russian”, which bursts out of the speakers. When the music stops, they shout together: “I’m a Russian.”

In an occupied city called anthracite, children from the children’s school made candles and blankets for Russian soldiers.

All this is part of a campaign that strives not only to erase Ukraine’s national identity, but also to turn young Ukrainians against its own country.

To do this with children, you need teachers and as many teachers in Ukrainians have escaped, the government in Moscow has started offering once 2 million rubles (£ 18,500) to Russian teaching staff ready to move to busy parts of Ukraine.

The largest and most powerful Russian organization involved in the children is Junricia (Youth Army).

Related to the Russian Ministry of Defense, he accepts members eight years old. It works throughout Russia and now has branches in occupied areas of Ukraine.

“We provide the children with some basic skills that will find useful if they decide to join military service,” says Fidail Bikbulatov, who runs the UNARMI section in occupied areas of the Proceria region in the southeastern part of Ukraine.

Bikbulatov is located from the Russian Bashotostan, where he heads the Youth Guard Department of the ruling party of united Russia.

The EU has sanctioned UNARMI and Bikulatov personally for the “militarization of Ukrainian children”. Yunarmia is also aimed at the United Kingdom sanctions on being part of Russia’s brainwashing campaign Ukrainian children.

Yunarmia is not alone. Other Russian state organizations, which have moved, include the “movement of the first” and a “warrior”, a network of centers for “military and athletic training and patriotic education of young people”, created on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

These groups organize competitions such as the Zarnitsa Games, rooted in the Soviet era, where Ukrainian children are obliged to demonstrate “common military literacy, knowledge of Russian statehood and military history, firearms skills.”

While children progress through the education system, they are taught in Russian, using the Russian curriculum and textbooks that justify Russia’s war against Ukraine.

One such book presents Ukraine as a little more than a Western invention created to abuse Russia, and claims that human civilization would eventually end if Russia had not invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Lisa, who attends school in occupied Donetsk, says the students there were forced to participate in events celebrating Russia and the USSR.

“When they were preparing a parade, I, my whole class, and my whole year I was forced to attend every weekend and train. We had to hold posters. I couldn’t say no, it was not my choice. I was told I had to do it to finish, “Lisa says.

“Every time lessons began, our teacher made us stand up, put our hand on our hearts, and listen to the Russian anthem that she made us learn by heart.”

Lisa now lives in the United States and publishes for her Ticktock experiences.

Service of Russian soldiers also plays a role in the indoctrination campaign, attending schools to give the so -called “bravery lessons”. They glorify their exploits at war and portray the Ukrainian forces as violent, uneducated neo -Nazis.

Pavel Tropkin, an employee of the ruling party of United Russia, is now based in the occupied part of the Heron region, says that these lessons are “so that children understand the goals” of what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Outside the school, Ukrainian children are taken to see specially organized exhibitions that glorify Russia and the “special military operation”.

A central catering for such trips hosts exhibitions called “Russia – My History” and “Special Military Operations” in Melitopol in the Procerns Region.

Travels don’t stop there.

The Kremlin also launched a major campaign to take Ukrainian children on a tour of Russia as part of the efforts to inspire pro -Russian sentiment.

Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova claims that over 20,000 children from occupied Ukrainian territories have been taken to Russia only under a program called “4+85”. According to the Russian Government’s concert agency, Rosconcert, which runs the program, it seeks to “integrate the new generation into a single Russian society.”

However, the Russian Integration campaign is far beyond indoctrination.

Thousands of Ukrainian children, taken to Russia in the three years of the full -scale invasion, were not allowed to return.

According to the Ukrainian government, over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia. The United Kingdom government estimates that about 6,000 Ukrainian children have been moved to a network of Reduction Camps in Russia.

International humanitarian law prohibits activities like this. For example, the Fourth Convention in Geneva is said that the occupation power cannot include children “in formations or organizations subordinate to it” and that it may exert “no pressure or propaganda, which aims to provide voluntary harvesting” to the locals in occupied areas in its armed or auxiliary forces.

In 2023, ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Putinpartly for illegal deportation of children. Putin and his government have denied the accusations.

Failing its war against Ukraine, Russia is not only after the territory. He is also trying to put his seal on people who live there, however young they are.