Russian Schoolchildren To Be Taught To Survive In Combat Situations

• 17.07.2024, 13:45

Already from September.

With the beginning of the new academic year there will be a new subject in Russian schools instead of the health and safety training course - ‘Basics of Safety and Defence of the Motherland’. The position of a teacher will also be renamed - now it will be, according to a July government decree, ‘teacher - organiser of the basics of security and defence of the Motherland’. The ‘heroes of the SMO’ will be invited to teach. The content of the course can be judged by the purchases of ‘educational equipment’ that ‘We Can Explain’ has studied.

The administration of the Shuryshkar district (YNAO) is buying models of mines, grenades, sniper rifle, automatic rifle, grenade launcher and pistol for almost 1.3 million rubles. It is specified that the toy weapons should ‘click when cocked’, and the pistol should have ‘an unchanging five-pointed star’ on the handle. The same customer has also placed a tender for supplying ‘simulators of wounds and injuries’, which must have ‘a spectrum of specific injuries that are possible only in military conflicts’.

Moscow's school named after Griboyedov is also buying wound simulators and mock-ups of grenades - it will spend 0.5 million on this.

A lyceum from the town of Muravlenko (also YNAO) has purchased an interactive laser shooting simulator for 1.5 million, which can assess the accuracy of shots at different distances. The same customer is buying a PVC figure of a soldier and a mock-up of an ‘open slot’ shelter.

Tula Pedagogical University named after Leo Tolstoy also purchased a shooting simulator, although not a laser, but a simpler one - its automatic rifles fire plastic bullets. Everything together with dosimeters, gas masks, compasses and other equipment cost 1 million roubles.

‘Many generations of Soviet children were trained to throw a grenade, run in gas masks, disassemble a machine gun, and there is no evidence that this had a negative impact on the psyche,’ says children's psychologist Anna Tomilina. ‘Another question is why do modern schools need it? With overloaded classes, deteriorating mental and physical health, and poor nutrition in the regions’.