Russian Occupation Uses Children for Ideological Militarization in Ukraine

Russian occupation administrations in the TOT of Ukraine use children as a tool to impose their own ideology. Recently, they conducted military training in a kindergarten in the occupied Kherson region.

In the occupied Skadovsk district, in the Romashka kindergarten, according to the Yellow Ribbon movement, Russians helda "patriotic lesson" dedicated to the Russian army. The children were told about the types and branches of the Russian Armed Forces, explained their "purpose" and organized a creative task during which the kids made applications on military topics.

"The occupation authorities are systematically implementing the militarization of education - now propaganda begins in nursery groups. Children are taught from an early age that the army is the main state institution and that war is part of 'normal life'. The cult of critical thinking is replaced by the cult of military power and "service to the state, " said the movement's activists.

The Center for National Resistance said that children are forced to learn distorted history and inculcate values that contradict their national identity.

"One of the main methods of influence of the occupiers is to change the content of the curriculum. The history of Ukraine is being replaced with falsified narratives that justify aggression and give children a distorted view of their own country. Lessons are taught with an emphasis on the "correct" version of events, and there is simply no alternative point of view," the CLC notes.

Such activities are aimed at the gradual destruction of Ukrainian identity in children who are not yet able to critically evaluate information. The policy of systematic brainwashing of children in schools in the TOT can have disastrous consequences for the future, as children growing up in such an environment may lose touch with their own culture, language and history. This threatens to create a new generation that will be deprived of Ukrainian identity and brought up in the ideology of the aggressor.

Earlier, the lawyer of the Regional Center for Human Rights Kateryna Rashevska said that the re-education of Ukrainian teenagers and youth is very well integrated into the policy of the Russian Federation, and it is carried out by bodies of different levels - federal, regional, occupation and even Ukrainian collaborators:

"This is a set of measures aimed at militarizing and politically indoctrinating Ukrainian children through both formal and non-formal education. Both in the occupied territory and in the territory of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus."

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