Since the beginning of Russia’s attack of Ukraine in 2014, the Kremlin’s objectives have been more than territorial gains. Over the last 10 years, Ukrainian classrooms in areas occupied by Moscow have also become a key battleground, where Russia aims to not only shift international borders, but what’s more, national identities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been abducting masses of Ukrainian children since the onset of his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A year later an arrest warrant was issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in the abductions of thousands of these children who have been subjected to a scheme of indoctrination meant to rob them of their Ukrainian nationality.
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Beyond these well-known abductions, Russia has enacted an intensive Russification plan targeting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian schoolchildren throughout occupied regions of Ukraine. In these Russian occupied areas, Moscow is forcing a blatant imperialistic school curriculum that delegitimizes Ukrainian independence and stresses Russia’s intent of totally eradicating Ukrainian identity.
Putin recently took the time to emphasize the relevance of his country’s attempts to indoctrinate the current generation of Ukrainian schoolchildren. At an early October educational event where he spoke, Putin specifically praised teachers working in occupied Ukraine saying they were showing extraordinary commitment and bravery by educating these children under very challenging circumstances.
The Kremlin’s two-part game plan has been to import Russian teachers into schools in occupied Ukraine, while concurrently coercing Ukrainian educators to welcome the new Moscow-friendly curriculum with bribes, threats and violence. Ukrainian teachers in Russian-occupied Ukraine have the option of transforming into a program that indoctrinates children to advocate Russia’s war of aggression or to leave their homeland and take flight.
International human rights organizations have documented cases of detention, torture and intimidation earmarking Ukrainian school administrators and teachers who have refused to follow Russian occupation officials. There are reports of school directors being detained for over one month and beaten before successfully escaping to safety in other parts of Ukraine.
In Moscow-controlled areas of Ukraine, the Ukrainian education system has been gradually deconstructed. Ukrainian children in Russian-occupied parts of the country are currently being taught a program of studies which exalts Russian military actions in Ukraine and shows just cause for Russia’s invasion.
Russia has produced new school textbooks since February 2022 which reexamine the war with Ukraine in heroic terms, presenting Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a mission to liberate their neighbor instead of as an act of international aggression. In the interim, children are encouraged to reject the entire concept of Ukrainian nationality and accept a Russian imperial identity.
Moscow’s program of indoctrination against the next generation of Ukraine’s youth extends way beyond historical misrepresentation. Russia’s occupying authorities are actively attempting to mobilize Ukrainian schoolchildren by encouraging teenagers to enlist in the Russian armed forces. Ukrainian schoolchildren are forced to attend specific propaganda classes that aim to foster loyalty to Russia while instilling hostility toward Ukraine.
Parents of Ukrainian children are also being attacked by Moscow to make certain they consent to subject their offspring to Russification. Parents in occupied regions of Ukraine have been intimidated with an assortment of dire consequences if they do not comply including monetary fines, loss of custody or even imprisonment. In spite of this dangerous situation, tens of thousands of Ukrainian parents continue to allow their children to pursue their studies online with Ukrainian educators.
Although global awareness is primarily focused on the military progressions of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, it is essential to acknowledge that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is not simply a desire to expand Russia’s geographical boundaries or to revise the map of Europe with aggressive force. Putin also definitively wants to annihilate Ukrainian national identity, and views the conversion of Ukrainian children into faithful Russians as a major component of his criminal undertaking.
Ihor N. Stelmach is a former principal and history teacher at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Parochial School in Hartford.
