Military training in Russian schools and universities relaunching, says UK intelligence

The training will be akin to that which students in the totalitarian Soviet Union, of which Russia was the dominant state, had to undergo, UK intelligence said.

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UK Defense Intelligence wrote in its update on the situation in Ukraine posted on Twitter on Jan. 29 that Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science of Russia has recently provided more detailed information on previously announced plans to introduce basic military training in secondary schools.

The ministry says the training should be a module within the current “Basic of Life Safety" classes, during which children will be taught to use automatic rifles, hand grenades and personal protective equipment.

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This program will become mandatory from the next school year – Sept. 1, 2023. The ministry also announced in December a “basic military training” course for universities.

"These initiatives highlight the increasingly militarized atmosphere in wartime Russia, as well as being a (likely deliberate) evocation of the Soviet Union: similar training was mandatory in schools up to 1993," the message reads.

Since launching its failed attempt to effect regime change in Ukraine by military means in February last year, the Kremlin has been moving to put the whole of Russia on a war footing.

A “partial mobilization” was announced on Sept. 21, following the Russian military’s loss of control of almost the whole of Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast in a lightning counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces.

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Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had been leery of calling a mobilization in Russia, fearing a political backlash. In fact, there was little civil unrest following the announcement of the mobilization in Russia.

Instead, around 700,000 Russian men of mobilization age were estimated to have fled Russia to other countries following the announcement of the call-up.

The mobilization itself has complicated the Kremlin’s plans to put the economy of the country on a war footing, as many of the men who were mobilized worked at Russian defense companies, according to experts on Russia’s economy.

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine