Students returning to Russian schools next week will discover a change to their civics courses that puts military training at the heart of the lessons.
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.
The revamped curriculum ordered by the Education Ministry requires half of weekly classes in the “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” course to focus on basic military training. It’s part of a creeping militarization of Russia’s schools intended to shape the next generation of army recruits as the Kremlin continues the war in Ukraine that’s now in its fifth year.
“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,” said 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. “If necessary, one must die for the motherland, taking up the flag and marching into the line of fire without asking questions.”
