Russian leader Vladimir Putin has expressed support for children as young as five being exposed to the weekly doses of war propaganda introduced after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While Putin claimed that any such material must be made accessible to very small children, these weekly ‘conversations about important things’ glorify war and the army; and aim at inculcating a highly specific form of ‘patriotism’ and at pushing Russia’s false narrative about its war against Ukraine. Nor, in fact, is this anything radically new. Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion, pre-school children were being dressed up in military uniform and sent out on ‘military parades’ and similar.
Any events where Putin is shown answering questions from journalists, members of the public, etc. is carefully choreographed, and the online meeting with the laureates of various educational competitions on 3 September 2024 was certainly no exception. Nadezhda Vorontsova, a kindergarten teacher, was first heard claiming to have understood from 7-year-old daughter and the latter’s teacher “how important” the so-called ‘conversations about important things’ are to them. She asked why this was not earlier, claiming that 5-year-olds “understand how to love the Motherland, and are capable of understanding many other things.” Their proposal, she said, was to introduce these ‘conversations’ from the age of five, and asked how Putin viewed such a suggestion.
Putin’s answer was wordy, but clearly asserted that inculcating concepts like the motherland, country, etc. “is corrected and extremely needed work”.
It is important to be clear exactly what Putin means by “basic values’ which Russia is seeking to inculcate both in its own country and on the approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory currently under Russian occupation. Russia is claiming that this is ‘historically Russian territory’ that has now ‘become part of the Russian Federation.’ No mention is ever made of the Russian soldiers, tanks and bomber pilots who invaded the territory, only of the fake ‘referendums’ held at gunpoint. ‘Patriotism’ under such circumstances means accepting a lie that Ukrainian territory is ‘Russia’ and that the children being fed such lies are themselves ‘Russian’. Children are also taught to glorify soldiers, including those convicted criminals and other participants of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Ukrainian children are actively brainwashed, with the aim being to convince them that their supposed duty lies in “defending the motherland” [claimed to be Russia) “against the enemy”, clearly supposed to be Ukraine and its western partners.
As mentioned, very young children have long been used for various propaganda and brainwashing activities. Photos and videos posted on social media after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed, for example, children as young as 3 or 4 positioned to form the ‘Z’ which became a symbol of Russia’s war of aggression. In July 2022, Verstka Media documented numerous state procurement orders for children’s military costumes and toys, with these coming from both kindergartens and schools. A kindergarten in Nizino (Leningrad oblast) also ordered toy weapons (Kalashnikov rifles, revolvers).
In schools, it became essentially impossible from September 2023 for teachers or students to avoid taking part in the so-called ‘conversations about important things’. There is also enormous pressure (or compulsion) around children joining Russia’s ‘Yunarmia’ [Youth Army] and other heavily militarized children’s and youth organizations. There were cases, also, in occupied Crimea where school students who did not take part in writing supposed ‘letters of gratitude’ to the Russian invaders of Ukraine were given worse grades.
Up till now, it is likely that the involvement of pre-school children in pro-war stunts; in support for Putin and / or Russia’s war against Ukraine, was not formal, but largely dependent on zealous teachers or local Russian politicians probably trying to prove their worth in ‘patriotic fervour’. The stunt with Vorontsova’s question and Putin’s replay may indicate plans to formalize such brainwashing much earlier, and make it harder to parents and teachers to protect very small children.
