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Parts of the Russian army act brutally in the Ukraine war: A soldier brags about his methods of motivating children to go to school.
Kyiv/Moscow – Video recordings currently circulating on the internet could provide an example of the everyday cruelty of the Ukraine war. You can see a suspected Russian soldier posing in front of the camera in a wooded area. His words are like a speech: a speech he addresses to schoolchildren in Russia.
In it, the soldier repeats well-known Kremlin propaganda. Translated, his words probably mean: “We will win, because good always triumphs over evil.” This takes up the narrative of the planned “liberation” of Ukraine, according to which Russia only reacts, not acts. “We are the true warriors of the light, not them,” said the soldier. Terms like “warriors of light” are also a popular stylistic device of propaganda, a kind of glorification of the atrocities.
Russian soldier spreads cruel message in Ukraine war
The soldier continues his message to students: “Dear children, if you graduate with good grades this year, I will give you the ear of a Ukrainian Azov soldier,” he says. The reference to “good grades” in school does not seem accidental.
Only recently, the British Ministry of Defense, citing intelligence information, warned that military training would be reintroduced in Russia. Basic training is to begin at schools and universities in September, including how to use hand grenades and assault rifles. Military drill is also announced.
According to an expert, the Russian state has been investing more in youth education since the beginning of the war. Attempts to get youth interested in the military are increasing, and pressure to join organizations is increasing. They are now suddenly also represented in remote regions, ”said Félix Krawatzek, political scientist at the Center for East European and International Studies IPPEN.MEDIA.
Russia is apparently introducing military classes in schools and universities
The Ministry of Defense in London had already warned against such measures some time ago: at that time it was about defending the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula. Accordingly, the hope existed in the Kremlin that the initiative could increase the quality of conscripts. However, the conclusion of the Ministry of Defense at the time was that the morale of the troops was probably too low.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the Russian government around President Vladimir Putin has described the information from the British Ministry of Defense as a “disinformation campaign” by the West – a kind of counter-narrative to the Kremlin’s propaganda. The information from London is just as little independently verifiable as that from Moscow. (do with dpa/AFP)