Russia is teaching its children to fight the wars of the future

Students returning to Russian schools next week will discover a change to their civics courses that puts military training at the heart of the lessons.

The mandatory classes for teenagers include learning about the main types of armaments including machine guns, anti-tank weapons and hand grenades, as well as emergency field medicine and general military discipline.

While some of the skills were previously taught in limited high school modules, the new version escalates this training for children as young as 13.

The revamped curriculum ordered by the Education Ministry requires half of weekly classes in the “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” course to focus on basic military training.

It’s part of a creeping militarization of Russia’s schools intended to shape the next generation of army recruits as the Kremlin continues the war in Ukraine that’s now in its fifth year.

“The romanticization of war and violence, combined with a constant fear of external enemies, instills in young people the idea that human life holds no value and that dying for the regime and the president is normal,” said Pavel Talankin, an exiled Russian teacher who co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary Mr.

Nobody Against Putin that focused on rising war propaganda in his school.

“If necessary, one must die for the motherland, taking up the flag and marching into the line of fire without asking questions.” As well as instruction on weapons and battlefield tactics, the basic military training covers lessons on Russia’s national security doctrine and the structure of the armed forces.

Students will also study mines and explosive hazards, first aid for combat injuries, chemical and radiation exposure and acute stress, as well as survival training and procedures for operating in conflict zones.

The educational overhaul effectively helps create a stream of potential recruits from the classroom to the army.

It’s backed up by deployment of battlefield veterans from the war in Ukraine into schools and kindergartens to speak to children in support of President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the 2022 full-scale invasion.

Russia seeks about 400,000 new recruits each year for the war that’s already created more than 1.5 million killed and wounded in the army, according to western estimates.

State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wants veterans of the war in Ukraine to be placed in “every single school” to teach children in subjects related to their military experience.

“Their qualities should be put to use in educating children,” he told university students in Krasnodar in September 2025, pointing to his own Soviet childhood when veterans of World War II were present in schools.