Russia is now focusing on school children in its efforts to “erode Ukrainian national identity,” according to the latest UK intelligence.
Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last February with the intention of seizing the entire country in a matter of days or weeks.
Almost 18 months later, and Moscow has reduced its war aims down to just consolidated the regions it is already occupying in the east and the south of Ukraine.
But, according to the UK’s ministry of defence, Russia is still looking to create a “pro-Kremlin information space” in these occupied areas to “erode Ukrainian national identity” – and Moscow is starting with the schools.
In its most recent update on X (formerly known as Twitter), the MoD said the first deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, Sergey Kiriyenko, travelled to the occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk this week to inspect schools.
The government official reportedly wanted to “check their integration into the Russian education system”.
Putin ordered the illegal annexation of the Donetsk region last September, along with the annexation of Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Kherson. He already annexed the peninsula of Crimea back in 2014.
That means those regions, in the eyes of the Kremlin anyway, officially became part of Russia.
Over in Zaporizhzhia, Moscow has instructed the occupation administration to introduce “new standard for the accreditation of educational institutions”, the MoD claimed.
On top of that, the Kremlin has rolled out new teaching materials.
The UK intelligence said: “A new textbook on the history of Russia will be issued to schools in the occupied regions of Ukraine and throughout the Russian Federation from 1 September 2023.”
The MoD added that this book “praises the so-called special military operation and describes Ukraine as an ultra-terrorist state”.
Putin has rarely acknowledged that the war is just that, often referring to it as a “special military operation” instead.
According to the scans of the new book posted by Russian state media, the book has sections on the country’s “confrontation with the West”, the baseless allegations that “Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state” and claims “Russia is a country of heroes”.
The Washington Post dubbed the textbook “part of an extraordinary gaslighting campaign” where the president tries to convince the population that Russia is not the aggressor.
Meanwhile, the MoD also said journalists from Russia are being employed in media outlets in the occupied regions, too.
It’s worth remembering the Kremlin has tried to control the information available to ordinary civilians about the war, by scaring them into avoiding international coverage, according to a previous update from the UK.