Russian authorities are imposing Russian curriculum and Kremlin propaganda in schools in occupied areas of Ukraine, violating the laws of armed conflict. And Russian occupiers are retaliating – sometimes brutally – against teachers who refuse to implement the changes.

A new Human Rights Watch report looks at how these new measures suppress the Ukrainian language and curriculum in classrooms in favor of political indoctrination by way of anti-Ukrainian propaganda and Russian language class instructions.

Russifying Ukraine’s Children

One million school-age Ukrainian children are estimated to remain in Russian-occupied territory. As an occupying force under international law, Russia is required to ensure all children in the areas it occupies receive an education. It is also prohibited from imposing its own laws, including around education, in those areas. 

But Russian authorities aren’t concerned with preserving Ukrainian children’s cultural identity or their right to education. Quite the opposite. The Russian curriculum includes history textbooks that justify Russia’s invasion and lessons that portray Ukraine under its current government as a “neo-Nazi state.”

Russian occupiers have even threatened parents with fines, loss of custody of their children, and detention if they don’t enroll their children in “Russian” schools, or if their children studied the Ukrainian curriculum remotely. 

Worryingly, Ukrainian children under occupation are also receiving military training as part of the new curriculum. A recent UN report found that that Russian authorities require secondary schools in occupied Ukrainian territory to share the names of students over 18 years old, whom the Russian authorities deem eligible to be drafted into the Russian armed forces. 

Stick to the Script – Or Else

Russian authorities have also cracked down on those refusing to follow their education plan. Authorities have coerced, detained, and tortured Ukrainian teachers to get them to use the new curriculum or to hand over students’ files and other school data.

Vitaliy Chernov was a school principal from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. After Russian forces occupied his village, he was asked to provide the new administration with details about his school. He refused. Soon after, he was handed over to the police, who detained him for a week in dire conditions and beat him repeatedly.

Teachers have a responsibility to educate children. Russia’s attempts to keep them from doing their jobs in occupied territories is a crime.

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