Russia Converts Schools To Parade Grounds, Teaching Students How To Assemble Guns

The Russian government is engaging school children in military drills including assembling guns, marching practice, throwing grenades, and shooting with real ammunition, CNN reports.

From the Pacific to the Black Sea, playgrounds are becoming parade grounds, and service in the armed forces is accorded more honour in schools, while the national curriculum is being modified to emphasise defence of the country.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and both European neighbouring countries have intensified in winning the war.

With the recent development in the country turning schools into military sites, Russia’s children are being prepared for war.

The militarisation of Russia’s public schools has intensified since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, driven not by a spontaneous surge of patriotic feeling, but by the government in Moscow.

Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said recently that there are now about 10,000 so-called “military-patriotic” clubs in Russian schools and colleges, and 250 people take part in their work.

Reports revealed that these clubs are part of the efforts to prepare children for mandatory classes on military-patriotic values among others.

In August, President Vladimir Putin signed a law introducing a new mandatory course in schools: “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland.”

The Education Ministry subsequently promoted courses as part of this initiative to include excursions to military units, “military-sports games, meetings with military personnel and veterans,” and classes on drones.

The law makes high school students also be taught to use live ammunition “under the guidance of experienced military unit officers or instructors exclusively at the firing line,” according to the ministry.

CNN said the programme, which is being tested this year and will be introduced in 2024, is designed to instil in the students “an understanding and acceptance of the aesthetics of military uniforms, military rituals and combat traditions.”

Furthermore, modern history is being rewritten too and the standard textbook, ‘History of Russia,’ now has the Crimea Bridge on its cover and a new chapter devoted to the recent history of Ukraine.

The book has sections entitled “Falsification of history,” “Revival of Nazism,” “Ukrainian neo-Nazism,” and “Russia is a country of heroes.”

An extensive survey by CNN of local and social media in Russia found that children as young as seven or eight are receiving basic military training.

In July, for example, children in Belgorod gave themselves call-signs – one adopted “Sledgehammer” – and took part in exercises that included the use of automatic weapons, assembling a machine gun and getting through an obstacle course.

Belgorod’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov suggested conducting exercises with schoolchildren and pre-schoolers regularly.

In Krasnodar in May, dozens of children who looked no more than seven or eight years old marched in army and navy uniforms, some clutching imitation automatic weapons, as they passed dignitaries on a podium.

In a parade that took place in the city of Vologda, a small child saluted and told an official: “Сomrade parade commander! The parade is ready. I am Commander Uliana Shumelova.”

Most of the children in these parades are in one sort of military uniform or another, trying to march in step without much success. Frequently they carry pictures of Russian military heroes.

The symbolism of what the Kremlin calls the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine is also celebrated. In the city of Astrakhan, nursery children wore uniforms and had toy vehicles emblazoned with the letter Z, a propagandist symbol used to show support for the Ukraine war.

Russia’s children are also expected to contribute to the war effort in practical ways. The governing United Russia party launched a program in Vladivostok in which school kids sew pants and caps for soldiers (in the pattern of the party.)

In Vladimir, children have been sewing balaclavas for the military in labor lessons, as part of a campaign called “We sew for our men.”

Students at a technical school in Voronezh were tasked with making mobile stoves and trench candles for the Russian military.

Also, disabled teenage girls in Ussuriysk were drafted into sewing “Friend or foe” headbands and bandages for the Northern Military District.

And in Buryatia in the Russian Far East, orphans sewed ‘good luck’ amulets for soldiers fighting in Ukraine, as per CNN.

There are also letter-writing campaigns. “Five-year-old boys from kindergarten answer with confidence,” a local news outlet in Chita trumpeted. “Before sealing the triangular envelope, they carefully colored the image of the fighter.”

All these activities are publicised in regional media as part of a broader effort to rally patriotic spirit in support of the Ukraine campaign.

The Defense Ministry disclosed that the goal is to “cultivate a sense of mutual assistance and comradely support, high moral and psychological qualities, as well as prepare the younger generation for service in the Armed Forces Russian Federation.”