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Like everywhere in Russia, the school week in the occupied [Ukrainian] territories begins with the raising of the Russian flag, the singing of the national anthem, and a session called “Important Conversations.” Starting in the sixth grade, students attend career guidance classes titled “Russia: My Horizons,” and since 2024, all students in grades eight through eleven have been obliged to take part in a course titled “Fatherland Security and Defense.”
The subject itself is an expanded version of the traditional Basics of Life Safety course — one enhanced with two modules of basic military training. The textbook for this discipline is still under development. However, the old curriculum has already been significantly revised: under the new program, students will be taught tactical medicine, undergo firearms and drill training, and receive instruction on UAVs and weapons of mass destruction. Half of the curriculum is dedicated to ideological conditioning: students are expected to develop an “anti-extremist and anti-terrorist stance,” understand “Russia’s role in the modern world,” “feel pride in their Motherland,” and “be ready to defend the Fatherland.”
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As a 14-year-old student from a school in Crimea told The Insider, teachers working under the new curriculum openly incite hatred towards “the enemy”:
>“They always set us against Ukraine and all Ukrainians. Our homeroom teacher teaches history, social studies, and the basics of the spiritual and moral cultures of peoples. She often says that all Ukrainians are fascists and terrible people, and that feminists and homosexuals are deranged. She constantly repeats that Crimea is Russia. Over the past year, boys have been more frequently told things like, ‘You are a future defender of the Motherland, so you must study well.’”
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The school’s social media states that supporting servicemen in the “special military operation zone” is a “key focus in raising the younger generation.” In photos from the production site, students are dressed in military uniforms, with a man in camouflage standing nearby.
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As part of its Cultural Map 4+85 project, the Russian Ministry of Culture also organizes “cultural and educational routes” specifically for schoolchildren from the “new regions.” … As a teacher from Donetsk admitted … children in her city “have no options”:
>“What’s there to see in Donetsk? The children see grayness and destruction, watch everything collapse before their eyes, witness helplessness. Over there, they get clothed, fed, and taken on excursions. Many bring canisters of water from summer camps back to Donetsk because we’re facing a humanitarian disaster. People go months without running water, or get it only three times a week. Of course, the children don’t understand that it’s Russia that brought the region to this catastrophe.”
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In 2025, the Russian government allocated $1.9 million to support the participation of more than 2,000 young Ukrainians in summer schools with an ideological component.
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Teachers who bring their students to “patriotic events” are not necessarily acting of their own free will, as one [teacher] from Donetsk told:
>“This is a huge system, and every person in it is just a cog. The teacher pressures the student, the administration pressures the teacher, the education department pressures the administration, the regional Ministry of Education pressures the education department, and the federal Ministry of Education and Science pressures the regional ministry. It’s a massive system where everyone acts formally, no one truly cares, but everyone puts pressure on everyone else.”
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Despite the pressure, teenagers in occupied territories try to resist. As [human rights activist] Sulyalina stresses:
>“Children protest in every way they can. We’ve had cases of children posting videos on Facebook in which they speak in support of Ukraine or say they are waiting for the Ukrainian army. Every one of them was brought in for questioning by the FSB or Center for Combating Extremism.”
Sulyalina also notes that the risk of prosecution often prevents parents from having open discussions with their children about the threat posed by Russian propaganda:
>“I’ve heard of a case in which a child was two or so when the occupation began, and the parents decided not to talk about politics in front of him so that he wouldn’t say something he shouldn’t. They lived in Sevastopol, and he went to school with the children of Russian military personnel. When in the first grade, he got an assignment to ‘draw his country,’ he drew Russian tanks with tricolor flags. So there is no telling when it’s too early to start telling your children about propaganda.”