Putin Grooming New Breed Of Youthful Supporters In Russia: 'We Need To Infect Them With Our Ideology'

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law for setting up a "patriotic youth movement," called the "All-Russian Social and State Movement of Children and Youth" which aims at preparing youngsters for a full life in society, Newsweek reported.

New details of the plan have now emerged.

Russian students, starting from the first grade, will have to attend weekly classes, wherein they will be shown war movies and virtual tours through Crimea, the New York Times reported.

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As part of the curriculum, students will be given lectures on the geopolitical situation, traditional values and the rebirth of Russia under Putin, the report added. They will be given orientation toward the regular flag-raising ceremony.

The new movement, developed in the likeness of the erstwhile Soviet Union's red-cravatted "Pioneers." It would be headed by Putin himself, the Times said.

Sergei Novikov, a Kremlin bureaucrat, reportedly told an online workshop attended by schoolteachers that efforts should be intensified to impart a state ideology to schoolchildren.

"We need to know how to infect them with our ideology," Novikov reportedly said.

"Our ideological work is aimed at changing consciousness."

These nationwide initiatives, according to the Times, will start in September and are efforts to "indoctrinate" children with Putin's "militarized and anti-Western version of patriotism."

Photo: Courtesy of cea + on Flickr