In the past, Russia has promoted patriotic values among youth and children in its home country.
Russia has established a pro-Russian youth movement in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, says a US think tank Institute for The Study of War (ISW) (you move to another service) in his Friday review.
ISW bases its information on information from the Ukrainian Resistance Center.
According to Ukraine, the Young South Movement (Yug Molodoy) was founded by the Russian occupation regime.
Its purpose is to expose the children and youth of Zaporizhia to Russian propaganda, i.e. to “brainwash” them into believing the Kremlin’s point of view about the causes of the war.
The business started its operations in Melitopol, which has been under the control of the Russians since the early months of the war in Ukraine.
The city’s Ukrainian mayor Ivan Fedorov according to the occupation administration, the youth organization has earmarked more than 200 million euros.
Russia illegally annexed four regions belonging to Ukraine into the federation in September of last year. The West has condemned the illegal regional annexations.
Promoted patriotic values in his home country
In September, Russia also introduced so-called patriotic lessons in all schools and at all grade levels.
Officially, the classes cover topics that the Russian government considers important. The curriculum also includes patriotic teaching, such as Russia’s perspective on the events of World War II and the “special operation” being carried out in Ukraine.
The opposition media have called the patriotic classes Kremlin’s propaganda classes.
In January, the Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov said that Russia is reforming the teaching of history in the country. As part of the teaching, the history books are also rewritten.
The Minister of Education justified the textbook reform by saying, among other things, that “the West is waging an information war against Russia”.
According to Kravtsov a new history book would describe (you switch to another service) in more detail the reasons for the special operation in Ukraine and the Russian authorities’ perspective on it.
Russia has also been reported to abduct children from Ukrainian orphanages and also directly from the hands of parents. You can read more about it here.