The third academic year during the war is about to begin. In many ways — critical. Critical for us and radically different for the Russians. So let’s see what happens.
Occupation. Here, everything is simple and challenging. No more flirting with Ukrainian parents. The approach is “he, who did not hide himself, is to blame”, and in some ways, unfortunately, the Russians are right. The key to assessing reality is that Russians do not deal with anyone except school-aged children. Nor adults. Nor pensioners. Even students fall out of the field of the spotlight. Only schoolchildren. It is an object and a subject of propaganda at the same time. It is the children who are already bringing home Russian narratives to their pro—Ukrainian parents without a chance to avoid participating in their approval. Sad, but true. Imagine your child brought a picture of Putin. Your actions? And if we add the understanding that the FSB can reveal real feedback with future deprivation of parental rights? That’s how it works. But this year, it reached a new level. Now, the children of Mariupol are obliged to choose one of the organisations of the Putin—Jugend (Putin Youth Agent — ed.) government for mandatory membership — Youth Army, First Movement, Putin’s Team, Komsomol, Young Guard — for any taste, social status and age. Refusal? Let’s go back to the FSB [FSS] knocking on parents’ doors. It all looks scary. That’s how it should be. It cannot be evaluated differently by adult eyes. How about children’s? Here is a slightly different picture. Much more colourful and interesting. Anyone who, like me, was a pioneer will understand what I am talking about. By high school, it’s even fun if built right. Therefore, it is a huge risk of losing our children. Mentally.
Is there an antidote to that? Certainly. Is all lost and hopeless? Not at all. But…
Evacuation. For the third year, the Ministry of Education pretends that nothing happened. That children and educators from the occupied territories do not exist. There are no us — there are no problems. Unfortunately, we have nothing to oppose the propaganda of the Russians. There is no high—quality and safe media and educational product in the occupation to compete with Russian propaganda. Their “Masha and Bear” cartoon is nothing compared to our “Mavka”. But is Mavka enough? Certainly — not. Further — worse. There is little attempt to create something out of nothing for the sake of centralisation, the occupied communities are excluded from the process of educating their children. And strangers do not need them. No one will make a Mariupol citizen except Mariupol. Without this identity, a local identity, we risk losing much more to provincialism.
But this is not even the key. Not about the futility of the struggle between power and power for the sake of something unclear. The key problem is the loss of understanding “what to do” and, as a result, practical actions. Who should become the first anti-propaganda agent/ Who will children believe more than their parents? Only peers. Peers who almost everyone ignores. Therefore, in the third academic year of the Great War, we must move from the government bureaucracy to the practical saving of the souls of our children. If we want to get Ukrainians regardless of their place of residence, we have to do it right here and now. As we have already missed yesterday.
By Petro Andryushchenko
*These opinions are solely those of the author. The Ukrainian Review takes no position and is not responsible for the author’s words.
Petro Andryushchenko was an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol. After the Russian Federation started war in Ukraine in February 2022, he became the de facto “voice” of Mariupol.
On his Telegram channel, “Andryushchenko Time“, he tells the truth about the horrors of the occupation, the deportation of people by the Russian occupants and the “filtration” camps in Donbas.
