Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian kindergarteners are being taught to throw grenades, navigate trenches, weave camouflage nets, and go through obstacle courses, as part of an increasingly intensive programme to train the next generation of Russians for war. ⬇️

2/ 2025 has been declared the "year of the defender of the Fatherland" by Vladimir Putin. Schools and local authorities have been using social media to publicise what they have been doing to commemorate it and promote nationalist-militarist values.

3/ The Russian independent news outlet Agency News has been reviewing social media activity for references to 'Zarnitsa' (literally "summer lightning"), originally a Soviet-era military sports game for schoolchildren that has been revived and expanded under Putin.

4/ Since the beginning of 2025, it has found almost 300 reports of Zarnitsa activities, compared to only 100 in the same period of 2024 and none in 2022. This likely reflects an intensification of Zarnitsa programmes in schools over the past year.

5/ In Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, sixty children from ten kindergartens "competed in drill training, grenade throwing, first aid, field demining, and talked about the Heroes of the Soviet Union". They were given awards by military personnel.

6/ In kindergartens elsewhere, children wore medical and military uniforms, posed with toy weapons, wove camouflage nets and ate soldier's porridge. Sandbag trenches, tents and field kitchens were set up in playgrounds.

7/ The Leningrad region's Slantsevsky District reported on the Russian social network VK that kindergarteners "passed several tests according to the guidance sheets: 'School of the Young Fighter', 'Intelligence and Encryption Department', 'Artillerymen', 'Medical Battalion',…

8/ …'Orienteering on the ground'. The boys 👦showed courage and determination when carrying out the tasks, and the girls showed knowledge and skills in providing first aid 💉💊.

The game ended with a halt with a concert and delicious soldier's porridge.

9/ "War songs and poems were recited. The children will especially remember the 'Young Fighter's School' under the guidance of combat veterans, where they underwent basic drill and physical training."

10/ As well as taking parts in Zarnitsa activities, Russian schoolchildren are increasingly subjected to intensive war propaganda. 'Heroes' Desks' dedicated to soldiers who have fallen in the Ukraine war have been installed in classrooms as de facto shrines.

11/ Elsewhere, children are being taught battlefield medicine with the aid of 'combat wound simulators'.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1834574968257987011

12/ Veterans of the Ukraine war, including men convicted of murder and paedophilia, routinely visit schools to lecture about the military. Kindergarteners are encouraged to "hug a soldier", while children of all ages are put to work making camouflage nets and trench candles.

13/ The ultimate aim is to create a generation of indoctrinated young people, very much in the model of the Hitler Youth, who are accustomed to thinking of war as their duty and obligation. Russia has also made it easier for teenagers to go straight from school to the army.

14/ If the programme continues (and there is no indication that it will not), it should ensure that from the late 2020s and through the 2030s, the Russian army will get a steady stream of fanatical recruits, enabling Putin to generate the manpower needed for new wars. /end

Source:
t.me/agentstvonews/…