By Galina Korol | 2025-05-02

KYIV -- In Russia, the next generation of war fighters may already be in training. As the Kremlin presses on with its war in Ukraine, it is doubling down on a different kind of front: the classroom.

This year, Russia's Youth Army Cadets National Movement, a state-backed youth organization steeped in military drills and patriotic messaging, will receive 1 billion RUB (about $12.2 million) in government funding.

That is twice what it received last year and the largest sum since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, according to the independent outlet Mozhem Obyasnit.

The budget boost points to Moscow's intent to enshrine military readiness into the next generation.

Soldiers for future wars

The Kremlin will funnel 800 million RUB ($9.7 million) to the Youth Army through Russia's national Youth and Children program, a Kremlin initiative launched by presidential decree to build "advanced schools" across the country, according to documents that Mozhem Obyasnit journalists reviewed.

The Defense Ministry has separately earmarked another 200 million RUB ($2.4 million) for training young Russians for military service.

This outlay marks a sharp rise in funding: the Youth Army received 480 million RUB ($5.9 million) in 2024, 470 million RUB ($5.7 million) in 2023 and 560 million RUB ($6.8 million) in 2022.

The increase has alarmed rights advocates, who view the program as a tool of ideological mobilization designed to feed Russia's long-term military needs.

"One of its objectives is to train not just soldiers but also civil servants -- primarily for the security agencies: the FSB [Federal Security Service], GRU [the military intelligence agency] and so on," Kateryna Rashevska, an analyst at Ukraine's Regional Center for Human Rights, told Kontur.

Supporting such entities is important for Russian President Vladimir Putin personally, she said. "This is his protection."

'Worse' than the Young Pioneers

The Kremlin established the Youth Army in 2016. While often likened to the Soviet Young Pioneers, or even the Hitler Youth, the organization has its own defining characteristics.

Oleh Ohredko, an analyst at Ukraine's Almenda Center, described it to Kontur as a "unique organization" with a purely military orientation, aimed at directly supporting the Russian armed forces.

Russian opposition politician in exile Olga Kurnosova views it as "a symbiosis between the Young Pioneer organization and the game Zarnitsa," a military-themed competition once popular among Soviet youth.

Although the ideological basis may now be weaker than it was with the Pioneers, "that doesn't make the situation better -- if anything, it makes it worse," she told Kontur.

At its core, she said, the mission remains unchanged: "brainwashing starting from childhood" in an environment of censorship and repression.

'Military zombies'

Children undergoing Youth Army training are being psychologically reshaped, conditioned for violence and absolute obedience, say analysts.

"Russia isn't training an army that will defend Russia. It is training an army of attackers," Rashevska said.

The program's emphasis on physical and hand-to-hand combat training "presupposes cruelty," said Ohredko.

"And this education of cruelty ... literally turns children into a particular kind of 'military zombies' who [are] prepared to carry out an order without reflecting on why it was issued."

The Kremlin, he argued, is instilling a cult of death in children, replacing a normal childhood with militarized loyalty to the state.

"Their psyches are practically being wiped out," Ohredko said.

Weapon training now includes real assault rifles and grenade practice -- no longer just dummies.

"It's a terrible situation where children ... are losing their childhood and being dehumanized," he said. "They constantly have a weapon, and they're constantly being stuffed with propaganda saying they have an enemy they need to fight."

Early exposure is especially dangerous, said Kurnosova.

"If the brainwashing starts ... before the age of 11-12, then it's already much more dangerous," she said. "And this -- if it is done well enough -- can be instilled in a person for life."

Ohredko pointed to the revival of the Soviet-era "Pioneer heroes" cult -- child warriors who fought in World War II.

He cited an example from the children's magazine Yeralash, in which a young hero who died in that war tells modern-day children that death is not frightening because "the most important thing is victory."

It is, Ohredko said, "nullifying your life for the sake of the future."

Kindergarten cadet groups

Critics are particularly alarmed by the Youth Army's activity in occupied Ukrainian territory, where the Russians combine child militarization with forced Russification and the erasure of Ukrainian identity.

"There are 1.6 million children in occupied territory, and of them about 600,000 go to school," Ohredko said. About 50,000 of them are in the Youth Army alone, he estimated.

Another 120,000 children, he said, belong to the Kremlin-backed Movement of the First, launched in 2022. Orlyata Rossii (Eaglets of Russia), a program targeting elementary school pupils, includes an estimated 80,000 more.

The number of cadet classes, each numbering about 30 children, in occupied Ukraine also is rising rapidly.

"More than 450 already exist," Ohredko said. "Whereas before it started in 7th or 8th grade, now the standard is first grade -- and even kindergartens, when the kids don't even understand what it is."

Participation is often not voluntary. Russian authorities pressure or coerce children and parents in occupied territory to join.

"Russia doesn't shy away from any methods to ensure that more and more children become participants in such military-patriotic movements," Rashevska said.

No one can be certain how Russia might use these children in the future, whether in operations within Ukraine, incursions into the Baltic states or various means of menacing Poland, said Rashevska.

These indoctrination efforts in occupied parts of Ukraine may constitute war crimes, she added.

While Ukraine is investigating and accusing individuals involved, securing accountability on the international level remains a challenge.