Access to Facebook, Instagram and other social media is blocked in Russia, finding balanced sources of information almost impossible. But Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin goes one step further. His state propaganda about patriotism and action in Ukraine is already being hammered into the youngest.
It’s the look in the room that resembles a small gym. Ten children are lined up there, holding Russian flags or leaves with a Z printed on them – the symbol of Russian troops since the attack on Ukraine. Behind them are two teachers waving huge Russian flags. The formation is also carefully chosen: children and teachers form a “V” – another symbol of the Russian campaign, which does not stand for victory, but, as the Kremlin recently explained, for the English transcription of the preposition from the Russian expression “Sila v pravdye” which means “In truth lies strength”.
A picture like this can be found in abundance on Russian social networks in recent weeks, but also occasionally on Twitter. Sometimes the children form a V, sometimes a Z, sometimes they hold a Z sign or a Russian flag in their hands. The controversy was shot at a hospice for terminally ill children forming a Z in the snow. BBC investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov, who himself fled Russia after being declared a foreign agent and increased surveillance last December, has been sharing photos with brief comments over the past few days. “And they said children should be kept out of politics,” he writes about the photo from kindergarten.
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Russia issues guidelines for teaching
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin and his supporters have taken the propaganda game in Russia to a new level. It is the next escalation in the twisting of facts in a country where mentioning the word “war” in connection with the Ukraine conflict could land you behind bars for 15 years.
In early March, the Kremlin published guidelines for schools on how to present the war in Ukraine to their students, and a “peace lesson” in class is now mandatory. Accordingly, as reported by “Welt”, Ukraine only came into being after the revolution in Russia in 1917, but quickly became part of the Soviet Union, and today’s separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea were gifts from the Soviet government. The “special operation” in the neighboring country is said to be justified by doubting the state and referring to Ukrainian fighters who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II.
A film is also shown to the children at the schools. “Defenders of Peace” is the name of the play that, according to Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov, has seen more than five million children. According to the Washington Post, Kravtsov himself described the schools as an elementary component in the fight “against the West’s information warfare and psychological warfare.” The video is now compulsory in class, and according to the report there are other episodes aimed at justifying Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The older the youth, the more intense the Kremlin’s efforts to cover up the real actions in Ukraine. The attacks on a theater in Mariupol, where more than 1,000 people took refuge, or the bombing of a school in Karkiv are declared fake news in class. Russia also publicly denied the attacks, saying that Ukrainian forces had fired on the targets themselves.
It is obvious why state propaganda is being intensified particularly among young people and students. While older people get their information from state-controlled TV stations and radio stations, younger people turn to the Internet to search for information. So that they do not come across war pictures there, Russia recently blocked several networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The speed has also been throttled for many social networks, so that images and videos hardly or only very slowly load. Numerous VPN tunnels that could be used to circumvent the blocks were blocked by the government – previously the number of users of apps such as the provider Atlasvpn had increased by up to 2000 percent within a week after the start of the war.
In addition, the Russian embassies around the world have recently been spreading their own videos, which are intended to influence opinion. After the attack on a children’s hospital in Mariupol, several embassies published their own “fake check” and explained that the attack did not take place and that the injured in the pictures were actors. Since the expressions and photos are the same on all channels, a state-coordinated campaign is also obvious here, Twitter and Facebook deleted
To celebrate the “liberation of Crimea” last Friday, schools and authorities came up with something very special. While Vladimir Putin fell victim to a technical glitch instead of giving a triumphant speech in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium (read more about the event in Moscow here), several parents from different regions of Russia told the “Washington Post” about the preparations for the celebration in class . Children should dress warmly and look beautiful, Igor Kostin tells the newspaper. The father of the family added that neither the parents nor the children were initially told why this should be the case.
Only when he asked a teacher was he informed that a celebration of the liberation of Crimea was planned. He then told the school that his daughter would not come because there was a law that forbade bringing politics into schools. He was the only one who publicly expressed his rejection, Kostin told the newspaper. “Anyone who is pro-Putin is free to express their opinion. But everyone else is intimidated.” At another school near St. Petersburg, a mother reported that the children at school were forced to form a V in white T-shirts.
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The example of Kamran Manafly shows that many teachers are also against the Kremlin’s behavior and what the consequences are. Two weeks after the war began, the geography teacher posted an anti-war post on Instagram and opposed the propaganda in the schools. “I don’t want to be a mirror of state propaganda,” says the 28-year-old’s contribution. He and many other teachers have their own opinions, which do not correspond to the opinion of the state. “We must live so that our conscience does not torment us,” writes Manafly. Just two hours after he made the post on March 8, the principal suggested he resign because Manafly didn’t want to delete the post.
When the 28-year-old wanted to pick up his documents from the school the next day, he was refused entry. But since some students also took the spectacle in front of the entrance as an opportunity to say goodbye to their teacher, someone called the police because he was organizing an unannounced demonstration, Manafly told the BBC. Instead of resigning himself, the teacher was fired from the school two days later – because of immoral behavior at work. The question remains whether Manafly could now also face a prison sentence. The newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” published Manfly’s testimony in full and stated that the testimony would not violate the law. And indeed: Manafly didn’t say anything about the war or the army in his post, the corresponding words don’t appear. He only formulated criticism of the government. That’s enough for dismissal in Russia in 2022.
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Source: Stern
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