Russia to teach children why Ukraine war is necessary

Russia’s education ministry, known as the Ministry of Enlightenment, announced it would hold a virtual session to explain to children why war with Ukraine is necessary. 

As per the ministry’s Facebook post, the session is slated to take place on Thursday, 12:00 Moscow time. The translation reads, “At the All-Russian Open Lesson, school children will be told why the liberation mission in Ukraine is a necessity”. 

The post has further detailed that viewers will be told about “danger NATO represents to [Russia]” and “why Russia stood up for the protection of the civilians of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics“. It is also aimed at helping children learn how to “distinguish the truth from lies in the huge stream of information, photos and videos” that are on the internet. 

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This decision comes after a string of anti-war protests that have been going on in the nation, despite the government’s repeated warnings against such demonstrations. Around 6,000 people have been arrested. 

President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine with claims of wanting to “denazify” and “demilitarize” the country has been met with pushback from almost the entire world. NATO members and allies of the US have imposed sanctions that have hurt the Russian economy, even targeting individual oligarchs to put pressure on the Putin government. 

Russia’s World War II rhetoric, which aims to bank on the country’s lingering hate for Nazis, has been questioned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and comes from a family that lived through the Holocaust. Further, Russia’s airstrikes on Babin Yar, the Holocaust memorial in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has drawn the leader’s ire. 

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The government’s choice to educate children about the necessity of this war comes on the same day that Kremlin has expressed sorrow over the loss of Russian soldiers’ lives in Ukraine.