Ukrainian diplomats and human rights activists are trying to draw the attention of the democratic world to the massive militarization of children's institutions in the occupied Crimea. How well-founded are the fears of Ukrainians?

In Crimea, about 45,000 children are members of the "Yunarmiya" (youth army) and other organizations whose task is “patriotic education of young people.” This was stated by Ukraine's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, Yevhen Tsymbaliuk, during his speech at the opening of the Warsaw OSCE Human Dimension Conference. For the sake of understanding, “Yunarmiya” is a military-patriotic movement of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which aims to “arouse interest in the geography and history of Russia, its heroes, prominent scientists and military leaders among the younger generation.”

In addition to the Yunarmiya, which involves every other school on the peninsula, about 12,000 students are members of the Movement of the First, headed personally by the Russian president. According to the head of the Teachers' Alliance trade union, Danylo Ken, this is actually an analog of the Hitler Youth. As one of the Simferopol high school students told CEMAAT, no one asked the students' opinion about membership in the organization. “The class teacher came in and said, 'You are now in the Movement of the First. The whole school is,” says the teenager.

The Black Sea Cossack Army is also building up its capacity. According to its leader, there are currently 19 classes in Crimea. This means that “patriotic and spiritual and moral work” covers at least six hundred schoolchildren. Unlike the first two structures, this one is already a typical paramilitary formation - with constant wearing of uniforms, a system of subordination, lining up and in-depth study of a number of pre-war subjects in cooperation with various military-patriotic structures, such as “veterans of military intelligence.”

For those who somehow did not end up in a particular paramilitary structure, the school curriculum still has a special place for military propaganda. In addition to the subject “Fundamentals of Military Training,” secondary schools now also teach “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland,” which replaced the “Basics of Life Safety” subject.

The war is also present in other lessons that seem far removed from it. For example, on geography tests, students are required to draw “new territories in the southwest” on contour maps. In addition, for the past two years, school education has included a format called “talks about important things,” which is often used to repeat Russian propaganda narratives. In addition, participants in the “special military operation” are actively invited to such events.

“Pumping children up with the idea that it is necessary to fight and defend Russia. And the worst thing is that it will be drilled into the brains of children, because they are very malleable, that it is necessary to die for it. That this is the highest feat. The entire children's space is occupied with this. Both at school and out of school,” says Oleh Okhredko, an expert at the Almenda Center for Civic Education.

As for the out-of-school space, this is a very good point. Indeed, the militarization of children in Crimea goes far beyond the classroom. Dozens of military-patriotic clubs are actively funded by the Russian authorities and have a wide range of offers. Free access to the swimming pool for the society of future combat swimmers, free military-patriotic camps for “young scouts” and “young commanders”, free components and training bases with drones for model airplane enthusiasts and future UAV operators.

And this is only the upper level of extracurricular militarization. At the basic level, almost all leisure facilities for children and adolescents face a system of additional incentives for including elements of “patriotic education” in their activities. “I take my daughter to dances. I see that their repertoire has begun to include more and more plays about soldiers and war. The artistic director revealed a secret: at every competition or contest, the jury automatically adds points for choosing a “patriotic” composition. You can ignore it, or you can confidently win prizes so that parents continue to take their children to this ensemble and not to another,” one of the residents of Sevastopol told CEMAAT.

Another example of maximum encouragement of integration into military propaganda is provided by parents of other Crimean children who applied for vouchers to the Artek International Children's Center. According to them, the application form contains a paragraph on membership in military-patriotic communities. If you “tick the box” and support it with some supporting documents, the chance of getting a voucher will be twice as high as for those who are not in a hurry to “militarize” yet. The story is similar when applying to Russian universities. For many parents, these are very convincing arguments.

Therefore, Ukrainian diplomats and human rights activists are sounding the alarm about the militarization of education in the occupied territory for a reason. The scale of this phenomenon has covered the entire peninsula and, in terms of the depth of its penetration into everyday life, may well be considered total brainwashing of all young Crimeans.

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