Ukrainian preschoolers turned into ‘Russia’s little soldiers’ in occupied Luhansk

Russia is not only intent on brainwashing Ukrainian children from occupied territory into believing that they are ‘Russian’.  It needs them to want to fight and be willing to die for the aggressor state and is beginning the indoctrination process at pre-school level.  Toddlers decked out in military uniform from World War II in Victory Day events may look very sweet, but there is nothing innocent about the children’s military parades, theatrical performances and other stunts.  They are part of Russia’s determined militarization of childhood and are openly aimed at equating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi invaders with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. 

Realna Gazeta has gathered information about Russia’s ‘enlistment’ of pre-school children in Luhansk oblast.   Instead of rebuilding cities that Russia bombed and devastated, Russia is spending astronomical amounts on brainwashing and militarization.  Given Russia’s aggressive propaganda, especially in areas under occupation since 2014, it is possible that some parents see nothing wrong with any of this and essentially hold the views being foisted on their children.  Other parents may well object but are likely to be frightened of speaking out.  They themselves could end up abducted, facing ‘extremism’ charges, or threatened with having their children taken from them.  Worth noting that children in occupied Crimea and their parents were earlier told that the children would get worse marks if they did not take part in letter-writing stunts, in which the children are supposed to thank the soldiers invading Ukraine.  Grades may not be a lever when it comes to pre-school children, but their teachers will be fearful of the consequences if they do not obey orders and come up with their share of ‘patriotic’ undertakings.

Khrustalnyi (which Russia is calling Krasnyi Luch, as in Soviet times) has been under occupation since 2014.  To mark Victory Day, both school children from School No. 3 and around 50 children from two kindergartens (‘Aist’ and ‘Rodnichuk’)  were decked out in Soviet military uniforms, and sent out on a ‘military parade’.  The pre-school children have been taught to repeat different chants, including “Not a step back, only forward”, recalling soldiers who were likely to be going to their death.  Some slightly older children are shown chanting something while making a salute in unison.  The parade was greeted by the Russian-installed head of the ‘district department of education’, Krystyna Prochukhan.  

Realna Gazeta notes that most of the teachers confined the stunts to merely dressing up the children and getting them to dance to Soviet war songs.  Some, however, carried the militarization further, with children from Luhansk Kindergarten No. 52 made to form a ‘Z’ – one of the main symbols of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (euphemistically labelled its ‘special military operation’).  The children are all holding another such symbol, the brown and yellow St George ribbon used as a symbol of ‘Russian world’ imperialism since 2014 (and earlier).

Children at Kindergarten No. 127 in occupied Luhansk were forced to sit and watch as one of the teachers played the role of a mother whose son was killed in the war and who is distraught because she can’t find the path in order to weep over his grave.  Then one of the children lies down on the stage, with it unclear whether he is supposed to be asleep or dead, while all the teachers, wearing red scarves dance around, to a Soviet song, imitating prayer that all sons will return safely.   At best, the entire event would have been something the children just sat through, bored.  In Kindergarten No. 47, also in occupied Luhansk,  the theatrical performance for boys and girls all in military uniform is, effectively, about the boys all having been killed and having become cranes (with all of this enacting the words of a Soviet war song.

In a kindergarten from occupied Dovzhansk, all pretence that this is merely  remembrance of WWII is abandoned, with the stand showing supposed ‘weapons of victory’ including the modern-day fighter planes used to drop bombs on Ukrainian cities.

The same dishonesty is seen in all the captions calling 2025 “Year of the defender of the fatherland’, etc. with the same term used to describe an invading army and bomber pilots targeting Ukrainian hospitals, schools and residential buildings.  The clear attempt to draw a parallel between a legitimate victory against Nazi invaders and Russia’s own invasion of Ukraine is presented in the so-called ‘history’ textbooks which Russia is using to rewrite the history of its war of aggression and inculcate a false ‘Russian world’ narrative.  (See: Ukraine ‘began the war against Russia’ in Moscow’s official school history textbook  and Russia plans extra propaganda classes in occupied Ukraine to “correct flawed understanding of history”

Russia’s aggressive militarization of childhood and glorification of its army were seen from 2014 in occupied Crimea  and have now taken on terrifying proportions.  While children are only pushed into Russia’s so-called ‘Youth Army’ or Yunarmia from the age of eight, the general militarization, and total distortion of historical reality, begins earlier.

In his response to a clearly orchestrated ‘question’ regarding the introduction of Russia’s war propaganda ‘conversations about important issues’ at pre-school level, Russian leader Vladimir Putin expressed support for such indoctrination of small children.  He spoke of inculcating ‘basic values’, including ‘patriotism’, the ‘motherland’, etc., which the aggressor state is illegally trying to foist on Ukrainians living on occupied territory.  Such ‘values’ also include glorifying those falsely claimed to be ‘defending the fatherland’ by invading another country’s territory and, most terrifyingly, convincing small children that they should also want to ‘protect’ the aggressor state against their own country.