By: Allison Xu

Recently in Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin has been shaping a new generation of supporters through schooling, starting from first grade.

Students now have weekly classes that include war movies and virtual tours through Crimea. They will have lectures on topics like “the geopolitical situation” and “traditional values.” They will also have flag-raising ceremonies, and lessons celebrating Russia’s “rebirth”

People have been noticing changes in school with these new circumstances.

During recess, fifth and sixth graders have been pretending to be Russian soldiers, and the people they didn’t like were called “Ukrainians.”

Irina Milyutina, an English teacher, has said that the children at her school started having arguments about whether it was right or wrong for Russia to invade Ukraine. Once the students settled down on the arguments, Z’s and V’s (symbols of support for the war) were written on chalkboards, desks, and floors.

In a recent phone interview with ninth-grader, Irina, Irina says that she has noticed some changes in her friends, who were initially scared or confused by the war.

“They suddenly started repeating everything after the television,” Irina said. “They suddenly started saying that this is all deserved, that this had to happen. They couldn’t even attempt to explain this to me.”

Irina also noticed that classes in her school were being replaced. For instance, her computer class was replaced by the viewing of a state television report on Ukrainians surrendering to Russian troops.

The Kremlin has been arresting people who are against the war. They have criminalized the remains of Russia’s independent journalism too.

Before, Putin tried to communicate state ideas to children. Now, because of the war with Ukraine, Putin has made it clear that it had to change.

“We need to know how to infect them with our ideology,” a senior Kremlin bureaucrat, Sergei Novikov said. “Our ideological work is aimed at changing consciousness.”