Militarisation of Russian education system brings trauma to children

KYIV -- The Russian regime is increasingly militarising children with targeted lessons and forced activities that aim to mould them into loyal followers, analysts say.

One example are the so-called "hero desks" that are being used in schools throughout Russia.

The desks are covered with biographical information and photographs of Russian soldiers killed in the war on Ukraine, a practice psychologists warn can seriously traumatise children.

Since last June, Russia's powerful security chiefs, leading propagandists and parliamentary hardliners have been pushing radical changes to the education system, while the Ministry of Education takes a back seat, the Washington Post reported at the time.

Teachers are being forced to shape children into "loyal militarised nationalists", it said, and those who refused are fired.

As the war drags on, schools across Russia have rolled out a series of lessons entitled "Conversations about What Matters" -- special lessons during which teachers present children with Russian President Vladimir Putin's reasons for invading Ukraine.

Additionally, the Russian prosecutor's office now actively checks schools to assess their compliance with a Ministry of Education decree mandating the purchase of mock machine guns and grenades.

These model weapons are required for the mandatory military training lessons that have once again become a part of the Russian school curriculum.

Militarisation of childhood

"We are really seeing that the militarisation of childhood is part of the Russian regime's policy," said Oleksandr Kraiev, an analyst with the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, a Kyiv-based think-tank.

"These are not some random activities by local authorities or actions by specific governors."

"It is a full-scale programme at the federal level to ensure the next generation of Russians really grows up militarised, constantly ready to serve in the army, with minimal throes of conscience or attempts to think critically about the reasons and origins of military conflicts," he said.

"Some sort of utter madness is starting to happen [in Russia] now, because soldiers are directly taking charge of schools," said Yelena Trifonova, writer and editor for People of Baikal, an online magazine that regularly publishes information about the situation in Russia.

Trifonova had to leave Russia last year, but she continues her work, monitoring her homeland from Riga, Latvia.

"For example, in Buryatia, authorities have allocated 300 million RUB [$3.7 million] to patriotic education, which, given Buryatia's small budget, is a huge amount of money," she said, referring to a Russian internal republic in Siberia.

"A military unit has been assigned to each school. And this military unit takes charge of the school, and soldiers go there and hold discussions about patriotic education," she said. "They simply enter the school and teach class."

Communication between schoolchildren and veterans is a normal practice in many countries, but in Russia this process happens in a way that completely contradicts common sense and harms children's minds, analysts say.

For example, soldiers who have just returned from combat for three or four days of leave are sent to schools to speak to classes. In such a highly stressed emotional state, the soldiers may be unable to communicate with children effectively, Trifanova said.

"I would certainly not want men who have just arrived from the front to come to my child's class, for the simple reason that they are mentally unstable," she said.

"They are traumatised. What would they tell the children? I can't even imagine! Men in this situation should not be given access to children."

'Gravestone desks'

The so-called "hero desks" provide another source of trauma, Trifonova said.

"The teachers themselves say they are horrified because they do not want this, but no one is asking their opinion," she said. "And the children don't want to sit at the desks. They say it's like sitting on a grave. They are scared and uncomfortable. It's a kind of gravestone."

As an example, Trifonova mentioned Irkutsk Gymnasium No. 44, a middle school which until recently was one of the Siberian city's most progressive schools.

But now, she said, the school has a very active military instructor in charge of patriotic training, who immediately ordered five "gravestone desks" and wants every classroom eventually to have them.

"When they formally unveiled these desks, which bear the names and photographs of the dead soldiers, their relatives came to the ceremony ... although none of the dead had even studied at the school."

"There were many crying relatives, and all this had such an effect on the students that two of them fainted," Trifonova said. "They just couldn't stand the tension."

Manipulation disguised as patriotism

This kind of "patriotic education" traumatises children and scars them for life, said Elena Ryhalskaya, a psychology scholar and psychotherapist in Kyiv.

"This is a gross mistake that has nothing to do with patriotism. It affects the child's psyche. It's a distraction, since the child comes to school to learn and gain knowledge."

"With these illustrations and portraits on them, the desks create emotional discomfort that weakens mental faculties and reduces the students' learning ability," she said.

"Worse yet, fear, hatred and aggression affect the children, and are worse if a pupil has deep anxiety," she added. "All these elements are embedded in a child's psyche."

Ryhalskaya provided a harsh assessment of Russia's long-term plan.

"It isn't fools sitting there [in power]. They are aware that there are different children with differing temperaments," she said.

The officials pick out "strong-minded" children to be "unthinking aggressors who can later be transformed into warriors and soldiers. You can send aggression into the army," she said.

"The weaker-minded ones are a fragile herd with no will of its own that can be easily manipulated and managed," she said.

"It really resembles many other authoritarian regimes," said Kraiev of Ukrainian Prism. "Above all, the Third Reich comes to mind."

"Realising that war is becoming a constant, realising that it is impossible to win quickly and that all their goals won't be achieved, officials in authoritarian states start to prepare generation after generation for a continuing war," he said.

"That's the main goal. But it is a very dangerous trend, especially for Russians themselves," Kraiev said.