Desperate Putin now forcing Russian schoolchildren to be given military training

Vladimir Putin has unleashed a desperate propaganda drive across Russian schools, introducing compulsory basic military training and ideological indoctrination for children as his war effort falters. Reporting directly from Moscow, BBC Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg detailed the drastic academic shifts alongside a deteriorating domestic economic crisis in his latest update on state-controlled media and press reports.

The draconian measures come as Russia buckles under a worsening domestic fuel crisis triggered by Ukrainian drone strikes, forcing the Kremlin to beg neighbouring nations for petrol. Under major changes rolled out for the new academic year, Russian pupils as young as 10 face heavy state indoctrination aimed at instilling "patriotism" and self-sacrifice for the state. A newly revised school curriculum introduces a subject titled The Spiritual and Moral Culture of Russia for grades five to seven, designed to enforce state-sanctioned traditional values.

To make room for the ideological lessons, standard foreign language study has been cut by roughly one-third. The state has also restructured secondary safety classes, formally introducing a mandatory module covering "basic military training" alongside general life safety.

Schoolchildren will study from standardised social studies textbooks edited by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev - a key Putin ally notorious for his anti-Western rhetoric.

Reviewing one of the new Grade 10 textbooks, Mr Rosenberg highlighted how pupils are instructed that Russia possesses a "unique system of traditional spiritual and moral values" and that Ukraine has brought up generations to "hate Russia" based on "neo-Nazi ideas". He noted that the curriculum explicitly teaches children to be ready to sacrifice their personal interests for the country's prosperity.

Meanwhile, textbooks targeting 11th graders (16 to 17-year-olds) explicitly rewrite Cold War history, framing former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms as one-way concessions to the West that weakened the state, while alleging NATO expanded its reach unilaterally.

The Kremlin's push to groom the next generation of soldiers comes against a backdrop of severe economic strain and infrastructure failures at home.

While Putin 2027 calendars have already flooded supermarket shelves in Moscow, petrol queues across the country continue to stretch as Ukrainian drone strikes disrupt oil refineries. The shortages have grown so acute that Russia has been forced to expand its fuel imports to Kazakhstan, with the Aksai Condens refinery near their shared border directing up to 70% of its output to supply Russian pumps, joining Belarus in propping up Moscow’s energy grid.

The crisis has become so prominent that local newspapers are publishing satirical ads and poems mocking the chaos. Mr Rosenberg pointed to an ad featured in Izvestia (Itogi), in which a motorist offered to swap a 2016 Kia Rio, stranded 33 feet (10m) from a petrol pump, for a luxury Mercedes waiting farther back in the exact same line.

Elsewhere, Russian media outlets are urging citizens to abandon drinking and smoking to save the economy - arguing bad habits cost the country 5% of GDP - and suggesting Russians take up gardening instead.