Ready to fight for the Motherland. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Last June, a trio of uniformed Russian teens clutching a Soviet-era banner goose-stepped past a memorial to victims of Nazi fascism. Next to them, a dozen younger children stood awkwardly to attention as they watched soldiers and local politicians coat the memorial in fresh flowers. “The history of our country will never be forgotten,” announced a local functionary. “Never forget that you are citizens of a mighty nation!”
His audience — a gaggle of pre-teens — were about to be inducted into the Youth Army, the Russian state’s paramilitary youth group for children aged six and up. Founded by the Kremlin’s Ministry of Defence in 2016 as a means to prepare children physically, intellectually, morally, and “spiritually” for war, it now counts 1.3 million members and an annual state subsidy of $80 million. The inductees repeated, like the 300,000 other youths who joined the group in 2022, an oath of allegiance: “I swear to remain forever true to the Fatherland and to the Brotherhood of the Youth Army!”
This is a scene played out in hundreds of locations across the Russian Federation as the state seeks to militarise its young people by transforming them into warriors ready to do battle with internal traitors, as well as the West and Ukraine. New recruits spend their free time gathering humanitarian aid for refugees and the “evacuated” from Ukraine, learning about Russia’s historic military feats in the face of an aggressive West, meeting heroised “veterans” of Russia’s current war, and practising military skills — first aid, tactical exercises, and even live firing — to prepare them for conflict. These children are, as one Ukrainian commentator puts it, learning “to die for the Motherland”.
But this particular initiation did not take place in Russia, and these were not Russian children. These were Ukrainian children in occupied Mariupol. Just one month after the end of Russia’s brutal siege, which razed the town and left as many as 25,000 civilians dead, Russia kickstarted an indoctrination campaign to turn Ukraine’s children into Russian citizens and warriors. The Ukrainian state feared that the project would successfully feed yet more sacrificial bodies into an ailing Russian war machine.
After all, Youth Army members are told that Ukraine is a fascist nation that threatens to obliterate Russia — just as the Nazi invaders did in 1941. It’s no coincidence that the heavily publicised enlistment of these first dozen Mariupol “young soldiers”, as they are known, took place at a monument to the Soviet war effort, or that Mariupol’s “unit” was officially formed on May 9, the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The speaker at the ceremony implored the young listeners to “follow in the footsteps” of past soldiers in “liberating our brother nation from fascism”.
After its illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian government launched a wave of youth “re-education” projects that spanned changes to the school curriculum, the creation of “volunteer” projects for local youths, the reinstatement and recreation of Soviet-era monuments and rituals to war, and, in 2016, the creation of Youth Army “units” on the Crimean peninsula.
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SubscribeWe are supposed to be revolted by this idea of Russ-ifying children, thereby brainwashing them into fighting for Russian ideals. But they are just copying the West.
Back in 1914 it started when churches were preaching that Germany should be stopped – clearly a political act. The German children were brainwashed into N*zi political theory in the 1930s. American children for years have had to stand in front of the flag and worship American ideals.
Today our children are being brainwashed into believing that they could be any sex they want to be. They are being told in primary school that the world is going to end if we keep burning gas. Books are being changed to protect the ‘sensitive’. The children are informed that our history is something to be ashamed of and that we must welcome all incoming people to atone for our past behaviour.
The ‘burning’ of the books is the point of no return.
Sorry, I don’t see militarized youth marching around any US or British schools.
You’re conflating contentious social issues in a democracy with Russian fascism. I also don’t see people in the US or UK murdering and torturing anyone. Maybe that’s due to something called “rule of law?”
Still, I honor your sense of victimhood!
If people don’t listen to you, well, it must be all their fault!
You are the victim because you can’t see beyond what you are told to think. Is having a different opinion the same as victimhood? It is if you have been brainwashed by propaganda.
Chris, you started your first post saying that there is moral equivalence between what the Russians are doing to brainwash Ukrainian youth in captured areas, and what western countries do to brainwash their own youth. I will agree that there is a LOT of brainwashing going on, but in the west, it is not being done by apparatchiks of a foreign occupying nation.
So no, it is not the same.
Pledging allegiance to the flag of a country you are a child citizen of is part of the process of creating citizens who care for their country. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything your country does. It means you will not burn it down if its not perfect. It is not the same.
And when you don’t agree with what your country is doing, we have elections to change what your country does. It is not the same.
All that said, I do agree that political discourse has become a reflection of the dysfunctional inter-personal relationships so common among people with different world views, different values, different dreams.
In my opinion, today’s dysfunctional political discourse is a function of a base level lack of respect for anyone who disagrees with your worldview.
“Agreeing to disagree”, like compromise, is among many of the lost arts civilization today.
Heartily agree.
Sadly, the present is more and more resembling the old wars of religion in the 16th and 17th Centuries.
That didn’t turn out well.
Heartily agree.
Sadly, the present is more and more resembling the old wars of religion in the 16th and 17th Centuries.
That didn’t turn out well.
Chris, you started your first post saying that there is moral equivalence between what the Russians are doing to brainwash Ukrainian youth in captured areas, and what western countries do to brainwash their own youth. I will agree that there is a LOT of brainwashing going on, but in the west, it is not being done by apparatchiks of a foreign occupying nation.
So no, it is not the same.
Pledging allegiance to the flag of a country you are a child citizen of is part of the process of creating citizens who care for their country. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything your country does. It means you will not burn it down if its not perfect. It is not the same.
And when you don’t agree with what your country is doing, we have elections to change what your country does. It is not the same.
All that said, I do agree that political discourse has become a reflection of the dysfunctional inter-personal relationships so common among people with different world views, different values, different dreams.
In my opinion, today’s dysfunctional political discourse is a function of a base level lack of respect for anyone who disagrees with your worldview.
“Agreeing to disagree”, like compromise, is among many of the lost arts civilization today.
I think the point is to be alert to forms of propaganda that exist even in Liberal democracies. Yes, there’s no comparison between flawed Liberal states and Russian nationalist imperialism
Excellent reply.
You are the victim because you can’t see beyond what you are told to think. Is having a different opinion the same as victimhood? It is if you have been brainwashed by propaganda.
I think the point is to be alert to forms of propaganda that exist even in Liberal democracies. Yes, there’s no comparison between flawed Liberal states and Russian nationalist imperialism
Excellent reply.
The difference being that the Americans haven’t invaded their neighbour and then forcibly indoctrinated the children of the country they’ve annexed.
It’s one thing to have a patriotic or biased curriculum in your own nation to your own citizens, it’s quite another to try and brainwash the children of a different nation by force
Right – because the colonization, slaughter, brutal herding and “re-education” of the natives of the continent obviously doesn’t count.
I guess only white people count in your estimation?
I’m sure Native Americans were happy to do the same to neighbouring tribes when they had the chance.
Unless only white people are capable of colonisation, slaughter, brutal herding or re-education in your estimation?
Get off your soapbox you kool-aid guzzling Yankee maniac! No one wants to watch you playing with yourself!
I was pointing out the (obvious) similarities between what Russia is allegedly doing now and what the Anglo nations (US, UK, Canada and Australia) have done throughout their histories – it’s the hypocrisy of the matter I’m highlighting.
You seem to be making the argument that pre-existing tribal warfare between the natives is justification for the practical genocide of their entire ethnic group by foreigners with advanced technology (and a superiority complex that persists to this day).
With regards to colonization – I never make the claim that it’s a white phenomenon, but you seem to be titling at windmills of your own there. Rather, I find it disturbing that Billy Bob is either ignorant or just uninterested that the US has done the exact thing he is accusing the Russians of.
Not sure I’m the one on the soapbox here (and I’m no Yank either)!
Ok fair enough
Cheers!
Cheers!
Every nation has many things to be ashamed of in its history.
Every single one.
But there is a real difference between History and Now.
Your real, if inadvertent point, is that no western nation is doing that now–and most are not too proud of what they did do.
We can’t change the Past. We can’t send aid to 19th Colonial Indians or Native Americans. But we can do something about the Present.
Like aiding a nation under attack by the last colonial regime on the planet.
I agree with the first point, but (as usual) you’re trying to present the Russians as some backward horde of monsters and the West as some shining example of virtue, when this isn’t remotely true.
The US has been “exporting democracy and human rights” for the last 30 years and while that doesn’t constitute colonialism in the historical sense, it still serves the purpose of resource extraction (in addition graft of national funds by way of shady contractors and government officials) and leaves the places America tries to “civilize” (by way of aggressive americanization) in ruins (take your pick in the middle east) – so pretty close on that count actually.
Furthermore, the US still has colonies in all but name (aka “Territories”), in which subjects of the States reside, who do not have the same rights as citizens and can’t participate in American “democracy”.
Heres another example; France has a quasi-colonial relationship with West Africa by virtue of their stranglehold on the regions monetary policy via the “West African Frank” – a denomination the French don’t even use anymore themselves.
Oddly, you don’t seem to take issue with any of that, but then again, it’s hardly a secret that you’ve got an axe to grind.
I agree with the first point, but (as usual) you’re trying to present the Russians as some backward horde of monsters and the West as some shining example of virtue, when this isn’t remotely true.
The US has been “exporting democracy and human rights” for the last 30 years and while that doesn’t constitute colonialism in the historical sense, it still serves the purpose of resource extraction (in addition graft of national funds by way of shady contractors and government officials) and leaves the places America tries to “civilize” (by way of aggressive americanization) in ruins (take your pick in the middle east) – so pretty close on that count actually.
Furthermore, the US still has colonies in all but name (aka “Territories”), in which subjects of the States reside, who do not have the same rights as citizens and can’t participate in American “democracy”.
Heres another example; France has a quasi-colonial relationship with West Africa by virtue of their stranglehold on the regions monetary policy via the “West African Frank” – a denomination the French don’t even use anymore themselves.
Oddly, you don’t seem to take issue with any of that, but then again, it’s hardly a secret that you’ve got an axe to grind.
That’s an incredibly long bow you’re drawing there, and frankly a childish bout of deflection. By your logic because the regimes in the past have committed atrocities then it’s ok for other regimes in the present to do the same?
Just because the old empires didn’t treat the natives in the colonies particularly well (although Russia was as bad as any if the others but we’ll gloss over that) doesn’t give tyrants such as Putin and Xi the right to effectively ethnically cleansed areas today
My point isn’t that “it’s okay”, but rather that no one wants to be lectured by the biggest hypocrites in the room.
The Americans and wider West ignore the Rohingya while whinging endlessly about the Uyghurs plight and call the evacuation of children from a warzone a war crime while tacitly supporting the ethnic cleansing of Israel/Palestine (children included).
It’s the same point I have made elsewhere – the West has no moral high ground to lord over from with regards to any of these topics and cares nothing for “human rights” or any of the other weasel words that are used to justify American imperialism – it’s all a smokescreen to further their interest at the expense of everyone else, even (perhaps especially) their European “allies”.
You and mister Logan can bray all you want about “helping Ukraine”, but we are now already past the point where “western support” has led to more economic hardship, destruction, brain drain and loss of life than would have been the case if there had been a negotiated settlement prior to or at the beginning of the war (which was hindered by the US/UK, as we have discussed before) – and it probably still isn’t even close to being done.
I’d respect your arguments more if you didn’t couch them in “good guy America” propaganda, but everyone has their talking points I guess.
But given your own words, it is simply hypocritical to condemn one colonial power without condemning the other.
Unless you were urging the Vietnamese, the Iraqis and Libyans to go for a negotiated settlement with the West during those wars, to urge the Ukrainians to do the same is either delusional or intentionally malicious.
By now, most people in Ukraine know that anyone holding any position in the country will be killed, and all Ukrainians under Russian control will be deemed potential traitors for the rest of their lives. Indeed, Russian prime time TV drums this into every listener’s head each day.
So in effect, you are the biggest “colonialist” around.
But given your own words, it is simply hypocritical to condemn one colonial power without condemning the other.
Unless you were urging the Vietnamese, the Iraqis and Libyans to go for a negotiated settlement with the West during those wars, to urge the Ukrainians to do the same is either delusional or intentionally malicious.
By now, most people in Ukraine know that anyone holding any position in the country will be killed, and all Ukrainians under Russian control will be deemed potential traitors for the rest of their lives. Indeed, Russian prime time TV drums this into every listener’s head each day.
So in effect, you are the biggest “colonialist” around.
My point isn’t that “it’s okay”, but rather that no one wants to be lectured by the biggest hypocrites in the room.
The Americans and wider West ignore the Rohingya while whinging endlessly about the Uyghurs plight and call the evacuation of children from a warzone a war crime while tacitly supporting the ethnic cleansing of Israel/Palestine (children included).
It’s the same point I have made elsewhere – the West has no moral high ground to lord over from with regards to any of these topics and cares nothing for “human rights” or any of the other weasel words that are used to justify American imperialism – it’s all a smokescreen to further their interest at the expense of everyone else, even (perhaps especially) their European “allies”.
You and mister Logan can bray all you want about “helping Ukraine”, but we are now already past the point where “western support” has led to more economic hardship, destruction, brain drain and loss of life than would have been the case if there had been a negotiated settlement prior to or at the beginning of the war (which was hindered by the US/UK, as we have discussed before) – and it probably still isn’t even close to being done.
I’d respect your arguments more if you didn’t couch them in “good guy America” propaganda, but everyone has their talking points I guess.
Ok fair enough
Every nation has many things to be ashamed of in its history.
Every single one.
But there is a real difference between History and Now.
Your real, if inadvertent point, is that no western nation is doing that now–and most are not too proud of what they did do.
We can’t change the Past. We can’t send aid to 19th Colonial Indians or Native Americans. But we can do something about the Present.
Like aiding a nation under attack by the last colonial regime on the planet.
That’s an incredibly long bow you’re drawing there, and frankly a childish bout of deflection. By your logic because the regimes in the past have committed atrocities then it’s ok for other regimes in the present to do the same?
Just because the old empires didn’t treat the natives in the colonies particularly well (although Russia was as bad as any if the others but we’ll gloss over that) doesn’t give tyrants such as Putin and Xi the right to effectively ethnically cleansed areas today
I was pointing out the (obvious) similarities between what Russia is allegedly doing now and what the Anglo nations (US, UK, Canada and Australia) have done throughout their histories – it’s the hypocrisy of the matter I’m highlighting.
You seem to be making the argument that pre-existing tribal warfare between the natives is justification for the practical genocide of their entire ethnic group by foreigners with advanced technology (and a superiority complex that persists to this day).
With regards to colonization – I never make the claim that it’s a white phenomenon, but you seem to be titling at windmills of your own there. Rather, I find it disturbing that Billy Bob is either ignorant or just uninterested that the US has done the exact thing he is accusing the Russians of.
Not sure I’m the one on the soapbox here (and I’m no Yank either)!
I’m sure Native Americans were happy to do the same to neighbouring tribes when they had the chance.
Unless only white people are capable of colonisation, slaughter, brutal herding or re-education in your estimation?
Get off your soapbox you kool-aid guzzling Yankee maniac! No one wants to watch you playing with yourself!
Right – because the colonization, slaughter, brutal herding and “re-education” of the natives of the continent obviously doesn’t count.
I guess only white people count in your estimation?
Maybe out of ignorance or malice the conflation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the US with Nazi Propaganda is just plain silly. One is the pledge to a pluralistic liberal state as a liberal state “with liberty and justice for all”. An aspiration which was not always achieved but was idealized. Only some schools observed it, and it was never a legal requirement that any did.
The Nazi propaganda was not in any way similar.
A poor analogy
Sorry, I don’t see militarized youth marching around any US or British schools.
You’re conflating contentious social issues in a democracy with Russian fascism. I also don’t see people in the US or UK murdering and torturing anyone. Maybe that’s due to something called “rule of law?”
Still, I honor your sense of victimhood!
If people don’t listen to you, well, it must be all their fault!
The difference being that the Americans haven’t invaded their neighbour and then forcibly indoctrinated the children of the country they’ve annexed.
It’s one thing to have a patriotic or biased curriculum in your own nation to your own citizens, it’s quite another to try and brainwash the children of a different nation by force
Maybe out of ignorance or malice the conflation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the US with Nazi Propaganda is just plain silly. One is the pledge to a pluralistic liberal state as a liberal state “with liberty and justice for all”. An aspiration which was not always achieved but was idealized. Only some schools observed it, and it was never a legal requirement that any did.
The Nazi propaganda was not in any way similar.
A poor analogy
We are supposed to be revolted by this idea of Russ-ifying children, thereby brainwashing them into fighting for Russian ideals. But they are just copying the West.
Back in 1914 it started when churches were preaching that Germany should be stopped – clearly a political act. The German children were brainwashed into N*zi political theory in the 1930s. American children for years have had to stand in front of the flag and worship American ideals.
Today our children are being brainwashed into believing that they could be any sex they want to be. They are being told in primary school that the world is going to end if we keep burning gas. Books are being changed to protect the ‘sensitive’. The children are informed that our history is something to be ashamed of and that we must welcome all incoming people to atone for our past behaviour.
The ‘burning’ of the books is the point of no return.
This is just Russia’s return to its only original contribution to world culture:
“The Conveyor.”
From Ivan the dread onwards, Russia has established the most efficient mechanism in the world to convey its own citizens from a normal life to a horrible death, and in the most efficient way possible.
Ivan the Dread did it with his Oprichniks. The Tsars used their bureaucracy to provide mases of cannon fodder in pointless wars overseas. Stalin used The Conveyor to starve millions, and lose tens of millions more in wars that he himself enabled.
And now witless Putin is ramping up The Conveyor once again.
100s of thousands will be crammed into their cages (real or virtual), and sent off to be burned alive in the furnaces of Donbas.
There is no logic, no hope in any of this, any more than there is any logic to what Putin’s people are doing in Ukraine.
It’s simply Muscovy being Muscovy. No “Real Russian” questions it. None wonders if there is any different way. It’s simply “Russia’s Special Path.”
Hasn’t changed in 800 years.
This is just Russia’s return to its only original contribution to world culture:
“The Conveyor.”
From Ivan the dread onwards, Russia has established the most efficient mechanism in the world to convey its own citizens from a normal life to a horrible death, and in the most efficient way possible.
Ivan the Dread did it with his Oprichniks. The Tsars used their bureaucracy to provide mases of cannon fodder in pointless wars overseas. Stalin used The Conveyor to starve millions, and lose tens of millions more in wars that he himself enabled.
And now witless Putin is ramping up The Conveyor once again.
100s of thousands will be crammed into their cages (real or virtual), and sent off to be burned alive in the furnaces of Donbas.
There is no logic, no hope in any of this, any more than there is any logic to what Putin’s people are doing in Ukraine.
It’s simply Muscovy being Muscovy. No “Real Russian” questions it. None wonders if there is any different way. It’s simply “Russia’s Special Path.”
Hasn’t changed in 800 years.
Sounds a lot like the Hitler youth
That’s exactly what it is, that’s why
That’s exactly what it is, that’s why
Sounds a lot like the Hitler youth
A very unbalanced analysis ignorant and deliberately perhaps so of the actual Nazi symbols and insignia used by Ukraine nationalist militias.
Craven Russophobia.
Vlad? That you?
Guess thats you Adolf speaking. Or Oswald Mosley in jackboots.
Guess thats you Adolf speaking. Or Oswald Mosley in jackboots.
Vlad? That you?
A very unbalanced analysis ignorant and deliberately perhaps so of the actual Nazi symbols and insignia used by Ukraine nationalist militias.
Craven Russophobia.
The article only underlines how this war is driving Russia more and more into a deep, suicidal psychosis.
Sadly, two former Wagner commanders Azmat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev, now openly admit to killing civilians, including childred, in Soledar and Bakhmut.
Since we know of hundreds of verified instances of this before (Bucha, etc.) this seems to be the standard now.
Indeed, the daily rocketing of towns like Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, far behind the lines, shows that Russia has given up on taking Ukraine. They don’t even bother to claim it’s aimed at Kyiv’s energy infrastructure. Now all Putin seeks is to cause as many Ukrainian deaths as possible before Russia is permanently driven out.
Understandably, people like Girkin and Prigozhin are already blaming one another for the catastrophe. Different groups are even labeling each other “Reds” and “Whites,” as in the Russian Civil War.
Ukraine was only a dress rehearsal–the main event will be back in Russia.
The article only underlines how this war is driving Russia more and more into a deep, suicidal psychosis.
Sadly, two former Wagner commanders Azmat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev, now openly admit to killing civilians, including childred, in Soledar and Bakhmut.
Since we know of hundreds of verified instances of this before (Bucha, etc.) this seems to be the standard now.
Indeed, the daily rocketing of towns like Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, far behind the lines, shows that Russia has given up on taking Ukraine. They don’t even bother to claim it’s aimed at Kyiv’s energy infrastructure. Now all Putin seeks is to cause as many Ukrainian deaths as possible before Russia is permanently driven out.
Understandably, people like Girkin and Prigozhin are already blaming one another for the catastrophe. Different groups are even labeling each other “Reds” and “Whites,” as in the Russian Civil War.
Ukraine was only a dress rehearsal–the main event will be back in Russia.
What a deeply sick nation. I lived in Russia in the late 1990s and though I enjoyed my time there very much, I came to the conclusion that the Russians in general were a very psychologically disturbed people – deeply paranoid and distrustful. A people ready to be manipulated into forming the raw material of a fascist state if the right type of regime took power. I was there when Putin was chosen as Yeltsin’s successor in the 1999, and though to me he seemed a strangely subdued and diminutive individual, a Russian friend of mine in St Petersburg knew exactly what he was: “They’re back” he said to me the day after his succession was announced – “they” being the same brutal and immoral forces that have always ruled Russia, with brief periods of a more benign interregnum (always subsequently reviled and rejected): “They’re back” – and indeed they were.
What a deeply sick nation. I lived in Russia in the late 1990s and though I enjoyed my time there very much, I came to the conclusion that the Russians in general were a very psychologically disturbed people – deeply paranoid and distrustful. A people ready to be manipulated into forming the raw material of a fascist state if the right type of regime took power. I was there when Putin was chosen as Yeltsin’s successor in the 1999, and though to me he seemed a strangely subdued and diminutive individual, a Russian friend of mine in St Petersburg knew exactly what he was: “They’re back” he said to me the day after his succession was announced – “they” being the same brutal and immoral forces that have always ruled Russia, with brief periods of a more benign interregnum (always subsequently reviled and rejected): “They’re back” – and indeed they were.
In 1945 there were millions of German children who had been thoroughly indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda for most of their lives. However they also witnessed the ruin which their leader had led their nation to. Very few of them appeared to want to reinstate the Third Reich if their voting record is indicative. It depends entirely on the outcome of this war. If Putin is left with any semblance of dignity at its conclusion he will claim victory. If he’s totally humiliated both he and his ideology will go the way of fascism.
In 1945 there were millions of German children who had been thoroughly indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda for most of their lives. However they also witnessed the ruin which their leader had led their nation to. Very few of them appeared to want to reinstate the Third Reich if their voting record is indicative. It depends entirely on the outcome of this war. If Putin is left with any semblance of dignity at its conclusion he will claim victory. If he’s totally humiliated both he and his ideology will go the way of fascism.