“Lessons About Important Things” Come to Kindergartens Starting September 1, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Education will begin testing “Lessons About Important Things” — a series of patriotic lessons — in kindergartens across 19 regions. If federal officials deem the pilot successful, the program will be rolled out nationwide for preschoolers starting in 2026. “It is in preschool years that a solid foundation of a child’s personality, their values and worldview is laid,” Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov told Vedomosti. According to him, the lessons will be conducted “in a clear and engaging format” suitable for children’s age. Vedomosti also reports that preschoolers will be taught “knowledge of history, respect for Russian culture, and love for the Motherland.” The initiative to bring “Lessons About Important Things” to kindergartens came from Nadezhda Vorontsova, a teacher from Vologda. In October 2024, she told Vladimir Putin: “At five years old, a child is already capable of understanding what it means to love their homeland, and much more.” Her view is shared by the governor of the Vologda region, Georgy Filimonov, known for his admiration of Stalin and advocacy of sobriety. As early as January 2025, without waiting for a federal decision, Filimonov introduced the lessons in Vologda kindergartens and appointed Vorontsova as the project leader. The first class, held at the kindergarten Topolek, where she works, was titled “What Do I Know About War?” Social anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova wrote on her Telegram channel that a distinctive feature of modern ideological indoctrination in Russia is its focus on children, who are expected — from as young as four years old — to be ready to go to war and die for their country. According to Arkhipova, propaganda in kindergartens does, in fact, influence people’s future worldviews. She cited a study conducted in 2014 by economists Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, who used data from the German ALLBUS national survey from 1996 and 2006. The study included about 6,800 respondents from different regions of Germany. Participants were asked whether they believed Jews aimed at world domination or whether the Nazi persecution of Jews in the 1930s was justified. The authors found that individuals born in German families during the Nazi era — and who attended Third Reich schools — were significantly more likely to express antisemitic views than those born before or after the 1930s. “Political and ethnic prejudices are easily absorbed at a young age (between five and eight), and are further reinforced if they are supported by the dominant ideology of the community. That’s why things like playing with toy assault rifles in childhood are so dangerous,” Arkhipova concluded. Children Will Be Taught to Operate Drones Drone classes will be opened in all schools of the Samara region within the next five years, said the local governor, Alexander Fedorishchev, at the “Unmanned Systems: Technologies of the Future” forum. The classes will be called “Russian Technologies.” The first ten classrooms are set to open in 2025. According to Fedorishchev, one of them will be located in the Diocesan Children’s Educational Center at the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the military settlement of Roshchinsky. “We have developed a program — equipping all schools with drone technology classrooms. That includes 3D printers and proper training — meaning we’ll teach someone, show how to do it right, and then guide the kids who are interested, helping them become specialists,” the Samara governor promised. Authorities in the Perm region will open UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) centers in six kindergartens. They cited an instruction from Vladimir Putin: by 2026, children from the age of seven should be ready to compete in drone races. In early June 2025, the first-ever Russian championship in drone operation among preschoolers was held in Perm. Stun Grenades in a Children's Military Camp In the summer of 2025, instructors at the “Armata” military-patriotic camp in the Belgorod region used smoke and stun devices “to make laser tag games more realistic and to train response skills to grenade explosions.” This was confirmed by the regional Minister for Youth Affairs, Tatyana Kireyeva. The incident was made public by a local resident, Laura Trokhimchuk, who had to withdraw her son from the camp. “The instructor threw a training or stun grenade — I don’t know the difference — right under the boys’ feet, just like that, unexpectedly, from behind. It stunned my son and another boy, and my son got a severe headache. The instructor laughed and walked away. During a ‘missile threat’ drill, the kids were shot at with air guns using rubber bullets so they would run faster,” Trokhimchuk wrote in the comments on the social media page of Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. Kireyeva did not confirm the use of rubber bullets at Armata. Trokhimchuk also complained that the instructors allegedly swore at the children and threatened to “shoot off their fingers” if they didn’t take them out of their pockets — and to “shove a grenade somewhere.” Her claims were confirmed by Kirill Kovalev, the brother of one of the camp participants. He threatened to file a collective complaint if the instructors were not punished. Minister Kireyeva stated that, after the complaint, the instructors underwent additional training on safety protocols and ethical standards. The head of the local education department, Svetlana Shchetinina, added that Armata combines elements of military training and patriotic education. She acknowledged that the drills might be unusual for children but called the camp beneficial for schoolchildren in a border region. According to Vot Tak media, Armata received 100 million rubles in state funding in 2025. That same year, Belgorod residents began complaining that children were being forced into the training camps against their will. One resident, Alexey Demchenko, claimed that teachers in the village of Radkovka threatened to ruin the diplomas of graduating students who refused to attend the camp. Replica Weapons for “Defending the Motherland” Classes The new school course “Fundamentals of Safety and Defense of the Motherland” has replaced the traditional Life Safety Basics (OBZh) class for Russian students. By the 2025–2026 academic year, schools across the country had spent at least 2 billion rubles on equipment for this subject, according to estimates by the project Tenderscope. The most commonly purchased item for the course was a grenade replica (1,500–2,000 rubles each). Second place went to weapon replicas, priced between 30,000 and 60,000 rubles apiece. These were followed by wound simulators (15,000–30,000 rubles each) and training mannequins (60,000–100,000 rubles each). The most expensive items were UAV training systems and simulators, with prices reaching up to 1.7 million rubles. | 
