Russian attempts to foist their educational program on occupied Kherson oblast schools have encountered resistance with virtually none of the school directors willing to collaborate

Amar was just 14 when the Russian FSB came for his father, Tofik Abdulgaziev, and 22 other Crimean Tatar civic journalists or activists

While these children will not participate in any military action that Russia may now be planning against Ukraine, they are taught how to use firearms, and indoctrinated with the aggressor state’s propaganda regarding ‘patriotism’ and ‘the enemy’

Children beginning school for the first time in the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [‘DPR’] are to receive an ‘Alphabet of Donbas’ where ‘R’ represents ‘the Motherland’ [‘rodina’] which is presented as being Russia

Instead of complying with the International Court of Justice and ending its discrimination of both ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, Russia opted for pretence and doctored statistics.

An ‘Avangard military-patriotic educational centre’ is to be built in Russian-occupied Crimea with children learning all kinds of military skills, as well as highly distorted views of history, war and what ‘patriotism’ entails

A regime that terrorises children with masked men brandishing machine guns has decided that the children’s mental state will be damaged by the one chance they have to see their political prisoner fathers – in court

Russia is spending vast amounts of money on propaganda and militarization in occupied Donbas, aimed at instilling it’s Russian Donbas narrative and bringing up Ukrainian children to hate Ukraine

The self-proclaimed and Russian-controlled ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’ [DPR/LPR] have presented a so-called ‘Russian Donbas’ doctrine which openly speaks of establishing control over all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

If Russia’s frightening militarization of childhood at home is aimed at getting young people to love and want to ‘defend’ their country, in occupied Crimea, Russia also wants children to hate Ukraine

Russian-installed ‘leaders’ of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [‘DPR’] have begun trumpeting a new ‘Russian Donbas doctrine’ pushing the idea that Donbas was created by Russians and has always been Russian

Almost seven years after Russian soldiers seized control of Crimea and the world had to resurrect the term annexation, last used about Adolf Hitler, in response, Crimean children are learning quite a different version of history.

Air pistols; automatic rifles; sniper and air rifles have been purchased for the Artek children’s camp in occupied Crimea, with this Russia’s latest criminal use of weapons to attract Crimean children to the occupiers’ army and to inculcate a war-focused notion of ‘patriotism’

26-year-old Alim cannot return to his family in Russian-occupied Crimea because he is unwilling to do military service and swear allegiance to the aggressor state

Ukraine’s Ministry of Education is refusing to set aside funding for critical preparatory courses and information work, aimed at ensuring that young Ukrainians from occupied Crimea and Donbas can study in government-controlled Ukraine

Russia’s State Duma has adopted a bill which will make inculcation of ‘Russian patriotism’ and ‘civic consciousness’ part of the school curriculum in both Russia and occupied Crimea

Russian has been declared the only ‘state language’ in the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ which Moscow controls but has never recognized

Through systematic militarization and indoctrination, children at preschool and school level are being taught that they should love and defend Russian proxy Donbas ‘republics’ and that Ukraine is essentially the enemy

Even physical exercise is on a war footing in Russian-occupied Crimea, with children training to be ‘young soldiers’ like their grandfathers or grandfathers and mass efforts at indoctrination

Since 2016, the Russian occupation regime has spent over 100 million roubles on efforts to turn children into so-called “new citizens” and “patriots of Crimea”