SepiaHow Russia Is Training a “Drone Generation” of Youth for Future Wars
How Russia Is Training a “Drone Generation” of Youth for Future Wars - Mander
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/49664850 [https://mander.xyz/post/49664850] > … > > Since the beginning of the full scale invasion, Russian authorities divert toys, school textbooks, cartoons, hobbies, and even video games to transform an entire generation into future military workers and drone soldiers loyal to the Kremlin, targeting Russian and kidnapped Ukrainian children from as young as four or five years old. > > Russia is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to turn classrooms into training grounds. > > … > > Following a directive from Russian leader Vladimir Putin to lower the age limit for drone competitions from 10 to 7, the city of Perm announced the creation of drone training centers within six kindergartens. Preschool children are being introduced to drone piloting. > > Funded by the federal budget, Russia will launch the first national drone piloting championship in 2026 for children aged seven and above, titled “Pilots of the Future.” The tournament will be organized by the military-patriotic movement Dvizhenie Pervykh (Movement of the First) in collaboration with the state-accredited sports organization, the Russian Drone Racing Federation. > > To attract teenagers, the Kremlin uses the strategy of “gamification.” Russian authorities use video-game-based training tools, such as a cyber-physical simulator called Berloga, to identify young prodigies, an investigation by the Russian outlet The Insider reveals. > > In this game, which reaches hundreds of thousands of young Russians, players must defend bears against swarms of bees using virtual drones. The most talented players are then recruited by the Sirius Educational Center, which is linked to the Kremlin, to work on real drone projects benefiting the defense industry. > > … > > In addition to training on FPV drones, Russian authorities are using teenagers to manufacture the infamous Shaheds, long-range Iranian-designed attack drones that have terrorized Ukrainian cities since 2022 and are now also striking cities in Israel and across the Middle East. > > In Tatarstan, far from Moscow, the Alabuga factory stretches across dozens of square kilometers, producing Shaheds—renamed Gerans in their Russian version—on an industrial scale. > > … > > Facing a labor shortage, in 2023, Russia began integrating students from local technical and polytechnic institutes into the factory’s assembly lines, as well as from foreign countries, including Russia’s strategic ally, North Korea. > > Students sometimes have to work directly after classes until midnight or two in the morning, reported Russian investigative media outlet Protokol in July 2023. On weekends, games—such as paintball matches—are organized for the student workers. Not to relax, but to ‘weed out the weakest.’” > > “Students must suffer, they must feel pain,” [says] Sergei Alekseev, top manager at Russian Alabuga Cluster. > > … > > This desire to create a generation of drone operators is part of an unprecedented, wider movement of youth militarization in Russia and in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. > > Losing more soldiers than it can recruit, Moscow’s model has proven unsustainable in the long term. Russia’s bet on a long and expanded war now relies on the engagement of minors—nearly 17 million Russian citizens in 2023 were under 19. > > … > > At least 210 facilities and camps in Russia and in occupied territories where Ukrainian children are subjected to “reeducation” programs and harsh military training were identified by the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health (Yale HRL). > > “The Russian program is the largest single kidnapping since World War II, when Nazi Germany moved children from occupied Poland to Germany for education in German,” [says] Nathaniel Raymond, senior researcher for the Yale HRL . > > … > > The policy has a specific goal: to eradicate Ukrainian identity and prepare these youths to serve as a mobilization reserve for Russia’s future wars, reports the Ukrainian organization ZMINA and the Almenda Center. 43,000 Ukrainian children have already been enlisted, and training centers have even been opened at Melitopol University. > > The tragic consequences of this policy are already visible. ZMINA and the Almenda Center report documenting numerous cases of 18-year-old Ukrainians from temporarily occupied territories killed on the battlefield after being forced by Russia to fight against their own country.
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