Taken out of class: How the Kremlin pushes propaganda through the youngest Turkey again sharply raises the minimum wage to 421 francs in the face of inflation

“Hello soldier, my name is Wika,” writes an eight-year-old in curving scribbles in her lined notebook. «Vika» follows the assignment given as homework by her school in the Irkutsk region: to write a letter to the front.

The Ministry of Enlightenment, as the education department is called in Russia, had already “recommended” its educational institutions in March to strengthen the spirit of the army with patriotic campaigns in kindergartens and schools. Now, just before the New Year, Russia’s most important family holiday, the country’s children wish “peace” from the soldiers. Peace through war, something that can hardly be questioned in Russian state schools.

«Wika» writes: «Since I can already read, I know through the Internet what important task you, my dear soldier, have to fulfill. You are our defender! I am proud of you.” There are also boxes in which words such as “Fatherland”, “Sieger” and “Russia” must be written.

The mayor of “Vika’s” hometown of Cheremkhovo enthusiastically presents the children’s letters and says how understanding the little ones are about the situation in Russia at the moment. Of course, the mayor does not say under what ideological pressure the children write such rules.

Children cry because their fathers have been summoned

Meanwhile, regional broadcasters bring reports from the schools, where some children are crying because their father has been called up. The off-screen voice says drily, “Some boys also react emotionally, but they will soon learn that defending their homeland is the most important task in a man’s life and will later take it upon themselves.”

Some educators have toddlers march in Z formations and post the videos on social media, teachers hand out templates for the soldiers’ letters and older students write poems that pay homage to the military.

Since Russia wages a war in Ukraine, which it calls a “special military operation,” the Kremlin has been trying to conscript the education sector. Indoctrination begins in kindergarten. Anyone who criticizes – be it parents, teachers, students – lives an increasingly dangerous life in a system of surveillance and punishment.

Teachers who refuse to organize so-called ‘talking about important things’, a kind of patriotism-like class lesson, are fired on flimsy grounds. Meanwhile, some schools are struggling with teacher shortages as some teachers were called up when the mobilization was announced, while others went into exile because they did not want to be called up. Officially, the mobilization is not over yet.

A ten-year-old is taken out of class

Sometimes the police take primary school students out of the classroom themselves because the school has reported its students. The most egregious case recently occurred at a school in southeast Moscow.

A ten-year-old girl is said to have used Ukrainian symbolism in a class talk and talked about war and peace. This is reported by the school. The police officers took the child out of class and several officers questioned her about her free time and her mother’s work.

The director had not informed the mother. She had already written to authorities that the mother “influenced the child in a wrong way”. The woman had her daughter removed from “conversations about important matters”.

First-graders learn Soviet war songs, third-graders that there is nothing more important than dying for their homeland, and tenth-graders that the “special operation” is a necessity imposed by the West. It is actually possible to stay away from class because the class is meant to be an elective. However, some directors make the lesson mandatory.

Parents are supervised by Bureau Jeugdzorg

The pressure from the schools is so great that not all parents are willing to take the road of resistance because they do not want to endanger the daily school life of their children. The ten-year-old’s mother refused – and found her child at the police station. Now the whole family is supervised by Bureau Jeugdzorg and must undergo so-called ‘social care’ by the government.

State officials explain to parents the “duties” they must fulfill for the “good mental, psychological and moral development” of their children. Such measures are not isolated cases.

According to the Russian constitution, political influence in schools is prohibited. But the ministries interpret laws as they see fit. In the tenth grade history books, the young are told about the “rebirth of Russia” and are taught about the “reunification of Crimea with Russia”. In class, they are told about the “necessary destruction of the Nazis in Ukraine” and the “2022 crisis” is explained, which “brings only good things to Russia”. (cpf)