By Ekaterina Janashia | 2026-04-20

A children's choir stood under studio lights on Russian state television and sang a cheerful song about losing the internet. The performance, broadcast on Channel 1's long-running game show Pole Chudes (Field of Miracles), featured students from the Volgograd-based vocal studio Komilfo dressed in bright costumes and bearing forced smiles. Their song celebrated digital disconnection as liberation. Russia's state media had just recruited children to sell censorship as a gift.

The clip went viral. Russians recognized the formula immediately. It was Soviet-era propaganda with a new deficit to justify.

The old playbook, new deficit

Soviet authorities had a reliable method for managing shortages. When central planning failed to deliver meat, state newspapers ran articles about the health benefits of vegetarianism and the dangers of cholesterol. When sugar disappeared, television doctors warned of the "white death." When soap ran short, the public was told that excessive bathing stripped the skin of its natural oils.

"Western music and fashion were not just censored -- they were framed as 'decadent' influences that would rot the socialist soul," Sergey, 57, a broadcast journalist who formerly worked for Channel 1, told Kontur, speaking on condition of partial anonymity.

The logic was simple: if the state cannot provide it, convince people they never wanted it. Today the deficit is not calories or hygiene products -- it is information.

Children as propaganda tools

As the Kremlin accelerates its construction of a "Sovereign Internet," a filtered, isolated network capable of being severed from the global web, it faces a problem. Unlike meat or soap, the internet is central to modern education, work, and social connection. To justify cutting it, the state must first frame global connectivity as a toxic "Western" influence.

The Komilfo choir's song was a textbook exercise in that conditioning.

"The blue light didn't spoil my lunch on the monitor," the children sang. "We do not want to, we do not want to — can't join the net. No sitting down, no sitting down on your internet!"

The chorus reached its peak with: "Ringing in the year -- it's the other way around!"

By using children, symbols of innocence, to praise the shutdown, the Kremlin attempted to manufacture social consensus. The "blue light" of the monitor was cast as a modern equivalent of Soviet-era Western decadence. Isolation was rebranded as freedom.

The reality is less poetic. Since early 2026, major Russian cities have experienced mobile internet outages and the throttling of non-government-approved platforms. The disruptions routinely coincide with political unrest or sensitive military developments, leaving Channel 1 as the default window to the world.

'Back to the stone age'

Social media users, many accessing platforms via virtual private networks (VPNs), met the performance with biting sarcasm.

"Honestly, what the hell do they even need the internet for? They might as well install radio outlets in every home," one Facebook user wrote. "I feel sorry for the kids: they're just singing what the adults told them to, and they probably naively believe every word of it."

On Telegram, the Soviet parallels resonated immediately.

"My grandmother used to tell me how they praised the 'health benefits' of eating only cabbage when the shops were empty," one user wrote. "Now they are teaching our kids to sing about how great it is to be illiterate and disconnected. It's the same lie, just a different century."

On YouTube, where a clip circulated despite censorship efforts, another commenter drew a sharper comparison: "While many countries are driving progress forward, Russia is rolling back into the Stone Age. This song is strangely reminiscent of those North Korean anthems about Kim Jong Un."

The Kremlin's objective is strategic, Sergey said. Severing Russian citizens from the global information flow eliminates competition for the state's own narrative.

"When the internet is on, people can compare state news with international reports, eyewitness videos, and independent analysis," he said. "When the net is gone, Channel 1 becomes the only window to the world."

The children of the Komilfo choir sang that "friends are more fun to see" in real life. But as Sergey put it, the song's most revealing line was its most honest: "Everything they say is the opposite of the truth. They don't want us to see friends. They want us to stop seeing what's happening to our country."

Much like Soviet citizens told that a lack of meat made them stronger, Russians are now being told that a lack of information makes them freer. A justified deficit, as the social media comments suggest, is still a deficit of truth.