Kremlin juggled to indirectly involve its young people in the conflict with Ukraine. Through a expensive, but effective marketing campaign, Kremlin meets its goals. The list of practices that carry out to exalt Russian patriotism and maintain the faithfulness of their youngest citizens It is extensive. In Putin’s Russia, children learn to handle weapons at school, they idolize war heroes, Izan the flag daily, and, the brightest university students contribute to the manufacture of drones that will one day reach the front of the war in Ukraine.
Recently, Putin has culminated but, although the conflict has accentuated social militarization, he has always worried what the young people of him and his country think. Since He raised power in 2000, He has invested large amounts of money in capturing them and indoctrinating them. Adeliya BissenbayevaResearcher affiliated with the Group Links, Creativity and Culture (VCC) at the Culture and Society Institute (ICS) confirms this thesis and how their militaristic efforts have materialized since that beginning of the century. In conversation with El HuffPostHe explains that Putin has promulgated a “reviewed story, based on his own criteria.” So, “has encouraged the image of democracy as a hypocritical conceptand its west bearers, such as Rusophobes, “he adds.
“Currently, among the indoctrination methods are both mechanisms of ‘awareness’ and the promulgation of messages that legitimize Russian aggression through the media – as more drastic methods,” says the researcher. Russian youth has not been outside these strategies. In schools, he says, the center of educational programs is “patriotism”, “Understood as unconditional love for the homeland.”
Thus, and as the expert affects the Kremlin promotes, through its baptized Young Armya series of participatory activities among recruits, in which it is transmitted “A clear message”: “The hero is not born, it becomes, and everyone can be heroes if they are willing to love their homeland.” This youth group is a military movement founded in 2015 to “educate” young people in patriotism and military culture through participation in activities as usual as summer or extracurricular camps.
Although Bissenbayeva does not want to forget “The other face of the currency”referring to the 19,000 Ukrainian children have been deported from Ukraine to Russia in 2014. “The testimonies point out that Russian soldiers kidnapped children, and did not allow them to talk about their country,” reports the researcher. “It is possible that the crime had the objective of Promote a positive perception of Russia among the young Ukrainian generationjust like keeping children as future infiltration weapons in Ukraine, “he adds.
Young Russian military, in a file image.
A school comparable to Soviet
After the fall of the Soviet Union, many of the independent states took Soviet models as a reference for the construction of their new institutions, as explained Anna DumskaProfessor at the University of Navarra (UNR) and ICS researcher, also in conversation with this newspaper. Therefore, many of the Z generation programs continued to promote values like work, community and love of homelandalthough within the new ethnic framework of its respective country.
“Perhaps the most surprising for a western reader is that students take a subject called Initial military preparation“Dulska explains. In her, young people learn to “Place the antigás masks, mount and disassemble a kaláshnikov (assault rifle) and march in formation.”
Even so, he admits that, despite the obvious indoctrination, education is much softer in this regard. The teacher puts an example the story of a millennial who studied at a school of the Soviet block. “He had to learn in the institute to distinguish the fungus clouds produced by atomic bombs, how to act in case of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, and even performed shooting practices,” he says. “I hope no one has to put into practice this knowledge,” concludes.
“Make Russia great again”
Both researchers, who answered the questions of El HuffPost From the hand, they agree that Putin has a clear mission: “Make Russia Great Again”. To do this, he uses “from classical methods, to state -of -the -art technologies, both in espionage and in the informative war.” Thus, they explain that Russian powers operate with “Factory of trolls, influencers and related academics that mold public opinion. “ “With the War of Ukraine stuck and disappointed society, the Kremlin has rescued UN APPEAL APPEAL: Patriotism against a common enemy. “
“In the political, economic and social, being born in the current Russia is not comparable to do so in the USSR, whose project failed loudly. However, there is a cultural thread that remains intact: the deep conviction that Russia is called to be large, costs what it costs,” they conclude.
Berloga, a double -purpose video game
Russian Z generation contributes to the manufacture of war drones. Hundreds of thousands of Russian schoolchildren build unmanned aerial vehicles that will serve the Russian forces in the front of the war in Ukraine. An investigation of the Russian magazine Faithful to Kremlin, which, disguised as video game and competition clubs, make thousands of Russian students into war engineers.
According to the information disseminated by the environment, the connection of Russian schoolchildren with the offensive begins in A video game of bears and bees baptized as Berloga, in which players use drones to repel the enemy. In this way, the brightest participants end up being part of the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives (AS).
The idea is that once the student enters the program, he does not abandon it. Vladimir Putin personally approved the launch of this program, and the key to popularity among young people is clear: 10 extra points in EGE, Russian selectivity. As the media collects, in 2024, during “A competition of great challenges”a group of students worked to improve the accuracy of the navigation systems of unmanned vehicles. In the same event, another team presented an automated drone detection equipment.
Explosion of a Russian drone in the heavens of kyiv, Ukraine, in a file image.
The fact that the tasks presented to the students were closely related to the objectives of the war is no accident. In addition, to receive educational advantages, Students can enter scholarship programs in state companies, Many of them from the defense sector.
In addition, the Berloga group also organizes other technological events for young people that attract attention. In 2022, the course Archipelago They focused on startupsdigital economy and, occasionally, in drones. However, in 2023, he experienced a radical reorientation, which was mainly dedicated in unmanned aerial vehicles. Among the tasks: FPV drones races, attack on enemy objectives in motion, the launch of unmanned vehicles from a surface station, the realization of recognition and evacuation, and the search for objectives through thermal images.
Many of the adolescents involved and who had been finalists in the contest now work for Russian arms companies. Some of them talked under anonymity with the media. “We were forbidden to say that it was necessary for war, and we invented civil applications. It is a children’s program … A project must always have a double purpose, especially when you are a school age student,” said one of them. “Children actively participate in the design of systems components for several unmanned planes”another revealed.
How to use war drones, one more subject in schools
“Ukraine has some neo -Nazis authorities” and “Russia is the victim of a western economic block,” thus, its authors prokremlin, directly accuse the West of promoting “Russophobia” and the outbreak of revolutions in the postsoviet space with The purpose of achieving the disintegration of the Russian Federation and control over their resources.
Since the beginning of the offensive in Ukraine, the Kremlin has struggled to militarize its students and has hardened the speech to unsuspected levels. The last program was announced in April of this 2025, and according to the newspaper The countrythe Russian Ministry of Education He bought more than 17,000 drones and formed his teachers to carry out his plan.
In this way, in recent weeks he has warned how Russia has begun to teach classes for the management of unmanned aircraft in more than 500 schools and professional training centers. In Putin’s machinery everything has a reason, and this British information coincides with the creation of a specific branch of the armed forces on drones, with views, to improve these long -term capacities. Vehicles that have become flying tanks.
