7-year-olds in occupied Ukraine taught how to become part of Russia’s war machine

Children in occupied Ukraine and in Russia will be taught from the age of seven how to operate drones, according to a new list of instructions approved by Russian leader Vladimir Putin on 13 June 2025.   Russia began actively teaching children and teenagers how to operate, assemble and even design drones back in 2023, with assault drones regularly brought into schools.

The Eastern Human Rights Group is blunt in calling this military training from childhood, with the measures not only in Russia, but in occupied parts of Ukraine.  The list of instructions issued on 13 June were on the results of a meeting of the ‘supervisory council’ of the so-called ‘Movement of the First.  This Soviet-style youth organization was created by and is largely under the control of Putin, with its aims purportedly being to form young people’s world view based on what are claimed to be traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, but that typically focus on a highly militaristic form of ‘patriotism’.  A second objective is to suitably organize young people’s leisure time, with Putin’s instructions now reducing the age at which Ukrainian children on occupied territory, as well as Russian kids, can learn how to operate drones.  Russia’s sports ministry and the Federation of drone races were both instructed to lower their age threshold.  From 2026, a so-called ‘nationwide’ championship on operating drones will be held, with this from the age of seven, and called ‘Pilots of the future’.  

All such activities are illegally held on occupied territory.  Since they are financed from Russia’s federal budget, they are evidently part of official state policy, as are all other forms of militarization and propaganda of war. 

The Eastern Human Rights Group reports also that ‘textbooks’ on drones for Grades 8-9 were approved by Russia’s education ministry in May 2025, and are now part of the official list of textbooks which will be distributed to schools, including those on occupied territory.   The textbook is clearly for a vocational course, with this part of a federal initiative to train ‘Personnel for drone aviation systems.”   Russia is now including very small children in its militaristic project, including Ukrainian children from occupied territory.

Putin first suggested that children should learn to operate drones in school at the end of April 2023, with training on operating, assembling and designing drones to be added to the curriculum.  He asserted that such early training would be “useful for the country” and would distract children “from what they shouldn’t be engaged in”.

There was never any pretence that this was about drones used for peaceful purposes.  The first deputy prime minister Andrei Bielousov stated at the time that, in order to involve young people in the field of designing and operating drones, they planned to use the infrastructure of the ‘Volunteer society for assistance to the army, aviation and navy’, or DOSAAF.  This former Soviet paramilitary sports organization was reformed under the current Russian regime, with its stated aim being ‘the patriotic upbringing of the population and preparing it for the defence of the motherland”.  Putin himself called drone aviation “a vital direction for the country’s activities’ with it clear from the outset that it was military significance which was viewed as paramount.

On 24 July 2023, the UK’s Ministry of Defence reported that all ‘Russian school children were to be taught the basics of operating combat drones. “Russian Senator Artem Sheikin announced that the lessons will include how to conduct terrain reconnaissance and ways to counter enemy uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).  The UAV lessons join assault rifle training, hand grenade skills and combat first aid in the revised ‘Basics of Life Safety’ syllabus for year 10 and 11 students, due to be mandated from 1.09.2023.”  The report suggested that the objective of such lessons was primarily to “cultivate a culture of militarised patriotism rather than develop genuine capability.”

Russia is cultivating such ‘militarised patriotism’ on illegally occupied Ukrainian territory and is teaching Ukrainian children about the very drones that the Russian military are using to destroy residential buildings, hospitals, and to hunt down and kill Ukrainian civilians.

Russia used 280 Shakhed-type assault drones, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles on 17 June 2025 against residential buildings in Kyiv, killing at least 28 civilians, injuring well over a hundred others. 

While claiming that the entire Kherson oblast is ‘part of the Russian Federation’, Russia has, for the past ten months, been using drones to drop explosives and kill civilians in those parts of Kherson oblast it does not occupy.  Kherson itself, whose residents so openly expressed their joy when Ukraine’s Armed Forces liberated the city on 11 November 2022, has been constantly targeted, as have ambulance workers targeted as they hurry to the scene of such attacks.

On 28 May 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine issued a special report, in which it presented evidence that such attacks are widespread, systematic, “conducted as part of a coordinated state policy” and constitute a crime against humanity. Since videos of these attacks are circulated on Russian Telegram channels with warnings to get out, the Commission also concluded that this is deliberate Russian state policy aimed at driving out the Ukrainian population, with such forcible transfer of the population also a crime against humanity.