Kremlin Expands Youth Indoctrination in Russia and Occupied Territories of Ukraine (Part Two)

Executive Summary:

• Russia’s youth organizations have played an important role in the Kremlin’s indoctrination effort, with Russian President Putin himself facilitating their development.
• Groups such as Yunarmia, Avangard camps, and the “Movement of the First” serve as platforms for indoctrination and militarization of their members, preparing children as future soldiers.
• In Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the Kremlin imposes these programs forcefully, combining a Ukrainian language ban, identity erasure, and forced participation of Ukrainian youth in Russian-run camps.

Russia’s youth organizations have played an increasing role in the Kremlin’s indoctrination effort, with Russian President Putin himself facilitating their development. One of the latest steps undertaken by Putin was the inauguration of six new youth centers across Russia on June 28, including in Khabarovsk, Novy Urengoy, Arkhangelsk, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and the Russian-occupied city of Henichesk in Kherson Oblast (RBC, June 28). These centers serve as gathering points for students and young people, part of the broader “Youth and Children” national project, which aims to launch more than 500 such spaces by 2030.

Putin’s efforts to militarize the Russian youth can be traced back to 2016, when the Yunarmia, a military-patriotic movement aimed at militarizing youth, was launched (TASS, February 22, 2018). Today, the movement claims more than 1.7 million members and operates in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories, with its members marching in parades, training with weapons, and attending specialized military camps (Yunarmy, 2025).

A recent Russian poll from the Institute of Social Marketing claims that 76 percent of respondents supported recreating the pioneer organization on the centenary of its founding (Telegram/insomar; Kommersant, May 19). While support was higher among older generations (81 percent) and rural residents (82 percent), two-thirds of younger respondents also expressed support for such a policy. The positive associations cited patriotism, discipline, unity, and respect for elders, showcasing how the Kremlin can efficiently utilize nostalgia for the Soviet past to legitimize its activities to indoctrinate the youth.

The “Movement of the First” (MoF), established in 2022, is regarded as the successor to the Soviet Pioneers and now has branches operating in numerous Russian regions, as well as in occupied Ukrainian territories (TASS, December 19, 2022). Unlike Yunarmia’s explicit military profile, it aims to encompass all patriotic extracurricular activities from volunteer projects to cultural events under a single Kremlin-controlled umbrella (RBC, December 19, 2022). The Russian authorities continuously facilitate events to instill patriotic feelings and support for the Russian military invasion in Ukraine. On September 10, there was an event organized in the city of Tula between MoF members and Russians participating in the military invasion of Ukraine. As part of this event, over 1,000 youth members from 60 different Russian regions painted portraits of Russian soldiers while also engaging in patriotic discussions with them (Gazeta-Don, September 11).

The Kremlin has also expanded militarization via Avangard camps, where children and teenagers undergo training that resembles battlefield conditions. Participants are instructed in trench-digging, handling explosives, assembling weapons, and operating drones, often while dressed in combat uniforms and performing patriotic rituals (The Insider, September 2, 2024). These camps blur the line between extracurricular activity and paramilitary preparation, incorporating military skills, indoctrination, and war symbolism into everyday youth culture (ISW, December 21).

Beyond schools and camps, the Kremlin uses museums and their digital collections to spread propaganda about Slavic unity and to reinforce patriotic education. Since February 2022, Russian museums—including those in occupied territories—have hosted over 50 online exhibitions depicting Ukraine as inseparable from Russia and framing the war as a struggle against Nazism and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (University of Exeter, June 6). Moreover, since 2023, Russian schools have been opening interactive “special military operation” museums to convey pro-Russian narratives about the causes of the Ukrainian invasion to children through quizzes, videos, and virtual reality simulations (BB.LV, February 16).

Together, these initiatives illustrate how the Kremlin has methodically mobilized both cultural institutions and the education system into a unified indoctrination infrastructure that feeds pro-Russian propaganda and sows animosity towards the West and current Ukrainian statehood.

In occupied Ukrainian territories, Russian authorities seek to fuse patriotic education with identity erasure (see EDM, September 3). There, from September 1, the Kremlin not only banned the Ukrainian language entirely in schools but also confiscated Ukrainian textbooks to replace them with pro-Russian narratives depicting Ukraine as an artificial state (Ukrainer,  July 15, 2024; BBC, June 26). Parents are also unable to access online education through Ukrainian schools due to threats of fines and prosecution, forcing them to enroll their children in Russian schools (Human Rights Watch, July 20, 2024).

Moreover, in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Russian authorities have been opening “special military operation” museums at schools, financed through grants from the Putin administration (ZN, October 8, 2024). Despite being officially presented as exhibitions about World War II, the displays overwhelmingly focus on the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, equating the current invasion with the Soviet fight against Nazism. The Kremlin has made these museums mandatory in occupied schools, with occupation officials standardizing exhibits to reinforce propaganda narratives (Krymr, July 29, 2024).

Kremlin’s occupational authorities have sent thousands of Ukrainian children to summer camps, university shifts, and military-sports programs to indoctrinate and militarize them (see EDM, September 3). Recently, there have been new documented cases of abducted teenagers from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia who were transported to camps in Volgograd in Russia to study trench warfare techniques, gun handling, and simulate medical evacuations (The Guardian, September 10). In many cases, the Kremlin implements these training programs to eventually proceed with conscription, eradicating the boundary between childhood and military service.

In two decades, the Kremlin has turned patriotic education into a well-structured propaganda system, merging schools, youth organizations, cultural institutions, and religion into one unified indoctrination system. Unless challenged, Moscow’s indoctrination campaign will further solidify its authoritarian resilience and normalize the militarization of Ukrainian children under occupation, a legacy with severe implications for European security and human rights for the next decade.