“Intelligence observes that the increase in the number of military cadet programs in Russian kindergartens is part of the very likely ongoing militarization of Russian education”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“It is likely that the politicization and militarization of Russian education, combined with the growing ideological indoctrination of Russian children more broadly, will contribute to the preservation of expansionist Russian nationalism in the long term,” the report said.
The intelligence community notes that the reported increase in the number of military cadet programs in Russian kindergartens is part of a very likely ongoing militarization of Russian education.
According to the Russian publication Verstka, the number of Russian kindergartens offering programs for military cadets has increased significantly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and more than 100 kindergartens across Russia have subsequently started military training courses.
It is reported that preschool children are taught to march, practice hand-to-hand combat “in a playful way”, handle firearms and “meet with participants of a special military operation” (this is how the Russian Federation is waging a war against Ukraine – ed.).
According to British intelligence, open-source reports indicate that in some cities cadet groups are linked to certain armed forces, such as the police or border guard, some of them are linked to the Russian Defense Ministry’s youth organization Yunarmiya and the Kremlin’s youth organization “Movement of the First”. Kindergarten cadet groups are also reportedly part of plans for a cadet education law currently under development.
Also, according to British intelligence, violent political education of Ukrainian youth by the Russian authorities continues in the illegally occupied territories of Ukraine.
The other day, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine reported the suspicion of seven Ukrainian citizens in the commission of offenses related to the involvement of minors in the activities of the military-patriotic movement, controlled by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. According to the investigation, the head of the regional headquarters of the so-called “Unarmy of the DPR” together with six heads of local units during 2019-2025 recruited more than 6 thousand Ukrainian children in the Donetsk region.