The main crime of the Russians is not the killing of tens of thousands of civilians. Not the physical abduction of orphans. The main humanitarian crime of the Russians is turning children into objects and subjects of propaganda at the same time.
Since the beginning of the occupation, the Russians have defined two categories of people who are outside the limits of total repressive control: children and older people. The first were considered not yet “spoiled” by Ukraine, and the second were considered descendants of the Soviet Union and potentially pro-Russian.
Already in the second year, only children remained in the zone of attention and respect. When it became clear how little the pro-Russian population was even among pensioners who had spent their youth in the USSR.
At the same time, the occupiers tested several approaches to mass propaganda of Russian news about Ukraine, from mobile TVs, standard TVs, and free newspapers to children’s shows. In the end, everything was rejected due to ineffectiveness, except children.
In the first academic year in the occupation, in September 2022, after the total filtering, the arrest of “dangerous” people began with the sabotage of parents. The children were simply not sent to a Russian school. It was then, in September 2022, that the FSB, together with educators, conveyed several messages to parents quite simply and unambiguously:
- Do you not send your child to school? We take away parental rights and take away the child.
- Do you deny / correct Russian education? We take away parental rights and take away the child.
Given the reality of the occupation of Mariupol, no one doubts that these are not threats but real warnings. Thus began the greatest humanitarian crime committed by the Russians in Mariupol.
Extracurricular education. Standard classroom education. Free time. Everything is subordinated to one thing – the child at school is stuffed with Russian pseudo-history and everything you heard from Vladimir Putin.
Further – more. Children’s organisations for all target audiences for militarisation. YunArmy [Young Army Cadets National Movement, a state organisation, forms supporters of the Putin regime through pseudo-patriotic indoctrination of teenagers, an analogue of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany – ed.] for families with problems on the marginal level. Young Guard for the average teenager. The Movement of the first – is for the best students. It goes to the restoration of the Komsomol. Everyone is busy. Everyone learns to handle weapons and hate Ukraine, democracy and “collective attack”.
A logical question, but where are the parents? What parents? Parents are not allowed to enter the school. All schools are behind the fence, and all this happens without their participation. Further – more. Children carry propaganda home. More and more effective than anything.
One example. Before Putin’s illegitimate election, Putin’s junior and high school children were given a task: Draw a portrait of the president. Everyone drew Putin (of course) and took it home. And now, look at it at night, parents. Your dear child drew and came for support. Do they get it? So, they are delighted to tell you a fictional story about the good Putin. Will you deny it, knowing the threat that your child will be taken away from you? No.
Result? So, step by step, children propagate most effectively at home, on the streets, in institutions, wherever the pragmatic hand of the occupation regime directs them.
And this is scary. There were no such examples in history. Similarity with Nazism and Bolshevism? Absolutely. But this adaptation to the challenges of modernity acquired special features of inhumanity.
This has definitely not happened yet. I hope there won’t be any more. And whoever invented it will be punished. For the most significant crime of all, after the murder of the children.
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.
Stanislav Kinka adapted this text for The Ukrainian Review.
