Russians plan to build a military sports complex for schoolchildren in temporarily occupied Simferopol (Aqmescit)
Crimea, Ukraine (Svidomi) — In the temporarily occupied Simferopol, Crimea, Russians are planning to build a complex to train schoolchildren in military professions, Russian media outlet RIA Novosti reports.
"The initial military training programme will include serious work with pre-conscription youth, and we are ready to 'help' schools and other educational institutions to undergo training practice at this training ground," said Alexander Dyachenko, head of the Russian Council of the Union of Crimean Border Guards.
The Russian authorities on the peninsula have already allegedly allocated a 55-hectare plot. By the end of April 2024, it is planned to install a training strip and simulators.
In addition, so-called "lessons of courage" have become more frequent on the peninsula. The Russians call the programme for schoolchildren "a social project aimed at allegedly educating and promoting an active civic position among young people".
At the Russian-occupied Crimean Vernadsky University, demobilised Russian soldiers are being trained to work with children, including to deliver so-called "lessons of courage". This is not the first time that members of the Russian army have conducted such 'lessons' for Ukrainian children.
The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, has previously stated that Russia has been pursuing a policy of militarising Ukrainian boys and girls on the Crimean peninsula since the beginning of its occupation in 2014. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, the process of re-education of young people has only intensified.
"Russia's militarisation of education and imposition of its ideology on children in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is a war crime under international humanitarian law! The Russian Federation must be held accountable for all crimes against Ukrainian children," Lubinets stressed.
It will be recalled that over the two years of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has taken more than 20,000 Ukrainian children for "re-education" under Vladimir Putin's University Changes programme.
