Russia has introduced an educational retraining program for Russian military personnel who can no longer participate in the war in Ukraine to transition into roles as school teachers, the National Resistance Center reported on Jan. 28.
The Kyiv Independent cannot immediately verify this claim.
According to the National Resistance Center, in several regions across Russia inactive military personnel will begin a career retraining program under direction of the Russian Ministry of Education to teach history and physical education lessons, with an additional focus of teaching basic military training as part of changes made to the Russian school curriculum last year following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The National Resistance Center notes that individuals discharged from military service, irrespective of the branch they served in, including those from Russian state-funded private military companies (PMCs), can apply for this retraining program.
In an effort to influence the view of the war among school aged children and recruit more young people to join Russia's military, the Kremlin has sought to include anti-Ukrainian sentiments in its curriculum, including textbooks that define Ukraine "ultra-nationalist state" where the opposition is banned and "everything Russian, declared hostile," according to CBC News.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian soldiers have been accused of committing war crime against civilians in Ukraine, including children. More than 500 Ukrainian children have died since the start of the full-scale invasion. Dozens of them were gunned down with small arms at close range, according to an investigation by Kyiv Independent journalists.
Olena Goncharova
