The campaign to force Ukrainian children to love Russia

Teaching to love Russia begins early for children in the occupied regions of Eastern Ukraine.

At a nursery school in Luhan, more than 70 young people have a long black and orange Russian military poster in the form of a letter Z, which is the symbol of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine.

In front of the city, seven little girls jumps up and down and gesture to the song “I am Russian” from the speakers in front of a Russian flag. When the music stops, they shout together: “I’m Russian.”

In a occupied town called anthracit, kindergarten children made trench candles and blankets for Russian soldiers.

Not only to erase the national identity of Ukraine, but also part of a campaign that turns young Ukrainians against their own countries.

You need teachers to do this with children, and as many Ukrainian teachers escaped, the government in Moscow began to present 2 million rubles (£ 18,500) to Russian teaching personnel who are willing to move to the occupied parts of Ukraine.

Yunarmia, the largest and most powerful Russian organization interested in children.

He accepts members under the age of eight, affiliated to the Russian Defense Ministry. It operates all over Russia and now has branches in the occupied regions of Ukraine.

“We offer some basic skills that they will find useful if they decide to participate in military service,” Fidail Bikbulatov, who is in the part of Yunarmia’s occupied regions in Southeast Ukraine, says.

Bikbulatov was deployed from Russia’s Bashkortostan, where he chaired the “Youth Guards” of the ruling United Russian Party.

The EU personally imposed Yunarmia and Bikbulatov for “militarization of Ukrainian children”. Yunarmia is also targeted by sanctions as Britain is part of Russia’s “brainwashing” Ukrainian children’s campaign.

Yunarmia is not alone. A central network for “Movement of Firsts” and “Military and Athletic Education and Patriotic Education of Youth” among other other Russian state -backed organizations is based on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

These groups organize competitions such as “General Military Literacy, Russian State and Military History knowledge, firearms, ignition skills”.

As children progress throughout the education system, they are taught Russian using Russian curriculum and textbooks that justified Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Such a book describes a little more than a Western invention that created Ukraine despite Russia, and argues that human civilization would probably end if Russia had not invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Lisa, who attended a school in the occupied Donetsk, says that students had to participate in events that celebrate Russia and the USSR.

Lisa, “While preparing a kind of passage ceremony, I, the whole of my class and my entire year had to participate and training every weekend. We had to hold a poster. No, this was not my choice. I was told to graduate.” Says.

“When every lesson began, our teacher raised us, confiscated our hearts and listened to the Russian Anthem, which learned us by heart.”

Lisa now lives in the USA and publishes her experiences about Tiktok.

It also plays a role in the vaccination campaign by visiting schools to serve Russian soldiers and to give “courage lessons .. They glorify their abuse in the war and describe their Ukrainian forces as violent, rebellious neo-nazis.

Pavel Tropkin, who is currently an official from the ruling United Russian party in the occupied part of the Kherson region, says that these courses understand the goals of what children call the Kremlin’s “private military operation” in Ukraine.

Apart from the school, Ukrainian children are engaged in special organized exhibitions that glorify Russia and “private military operation”.

For such trips, a Catering center is home to exhibitions “Russia – History My History” and “Special Military Operation Heroes” at Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia region.

The trips do not end here.

The Kremlin also launched a major campaign to take Ukrainian children to Russian tours as part of the efforts to instill pro -Russian emotions.

Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova claims that more than 20,000 children from occupied Ukrainian regions have been taken to Russia under a program called “4+85”. According to the Russian government’s concert agency Rosconcentrt, the Russian government, the program, is trying to “integrate into a new generation into a united Russian society.”

However, Russia’s “integration” campaign goes far beyond vaccination.

Three years of full -scale occupation, thousands of Ukrainian children who were taken to Russia were not allowed to return.

According to the Ukrainian government, more than 19,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to Russia. The British government estimates that 6,000 Ukrainian children have moved to the “re -training camps” network in Russia.

International human law prohibits such activities. For example, the fourth Geneva Convention says that an invading power may not be able to take children in formations or organizations connected to itself, and that the “occupied areas will not be able to apply pressure or propaganda to register for armed or auxiliary forces.

In 2023, ICC released a arrest order for President PutinPartly for the illegal deportation of children. Putin and the government reject the charges.

Russia, who fought against Ukraine, is not only after the region. Also, no matter how young it is, he is trying to make his mark on the people living there.