LONDON (Reuters) – Days after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Andrei Shestakov opened a set of recordsdata in a WhatsApp group chat for historical past academics like himself in his city in east Russia.
The recordsdata – which Reuters reviewed and comprise dozens of pages of paperwork and displays in addition to video hyperlinks – are directions on how one can educate teenage college kids about the battle. It’s unclear who shared the recordsdata to the group chat, however a lot of the paperwork carry the crest of the schooling ministry in Moscow.
The materials contains lesson guides stating that Russian troopers combating in Ukraine have been heroes, that Ukraine’s rulers made frequent trigger with individuals who collaborated with World War Two Nazis, that the West was attempting to unfold discord in Russian society, and that Russians should stick collectively.
Shestakov stated he leafed by means of the recordsdata throughout considered one of his classes. The slim-built 38-year-old stated that earlier than changing into a teacher in January he had spent 16 years as a police officer. But he had rising doubts lately, he stated, about whether or not Russia’s rulers have been dwelling as much as the values they professed about democracy, influenced partially by distinguished Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
He determined to not educate the modules to his pupils at the Gymnasium No. 2 college the place he labored in Neryungri, a coal-mining city in jap Siberia, some 6,700 km (4160 miles) east of Moscow.
Instead, Shestakov informed his pupils about the contents of the instructing information and why they have been traditionally inaccurate, he informed Reuters. For occasion, he stated he defined that the supplies claimed Ukraine was an invention of Bolshevik communist Russia but historical past textbooks mentioned Ukrainian historical past going again centuries.
He went additional. On March 1, he informed pupils throughout a civics class he wouldn’t advise them to serve in the Russian military, that he opposed the conflict towards Ukraine, and that Russia’s leaders exhibited components of fascism even whereas saying they have been combating fascism in Ukraine, based on a signed assertion taken by police and reviewed by Reuters.
In the following days, the native police and the Federal Security Service, generally known as the FSB, summoned Shestakov for questioning, based on the March 5 signed assertion about his classroom feedback. He stated he has not been charged in relation to these feedback. The FSB and native police didn’t reply to requests for remark.
A court docket did nice him 35,000 roubles (about $420) on March 18 for discrediting the Russian armed forces after he re-posted movies on-line of interviews with Russian troopers captured in Ukraine, based on a court docket ruling seen by Reuters.
He stated he stop his job final month as a result of he believed he can be fired anyway for his public opposition to the conflict, he informed Reuters. The native schooling authority and the schooling ministry didn’t reply to requests for touch upon Shestakov and the instructing information. When Reuters reached the college by cellphone, a girl who recognized herself as appearing head teacher stated she declined to touch upon Shestakov’s case and ended the name.
Teachers throughout Russia have acquired the similar or comparable instructing guides, based on two teacher’s union officers, two different academics and social media posts from two faculties reporting they’d taught the modules.
Olga Miryasova, an official with a commerce union known as Teacher, stated regional schooling authorities circulated the instructing information Shestakov acquired to a number of faculties round the nation. Reuters was unable to find out independently what number of faculties acquired the modules. One of the academics stated they acquired a distinct instructing pack from the one Shestakov did, although it contained comparable content material.
The initiative reveals how the Russian state — which has been intensifying its grip on the mainstream media — is now extending its propaganda effort about the Ukraine conflict into faculties as the Kremlin seeks to shore up assist. Since the conflict began, many Russian faculties have posted pictures on social media displaying pupils sending messages of assist to troops combating in Ukraine and standing in formation to spell out the letter “Z,” an emblem of assist for the conflict in Russia.
Teachers who disagree with the conflict at the moment are becoming a member of the ranks of opposition activists, non-governmental organisation campaigners, and impartial journalists in feeling the strain of the Russian state, with fines, prosecutions, and the prospect of forfeiting their jobs. President Vladimir Putin in early March signed into regulation laws that makes the unfold of “fake” details about the Russian armed forces, an offence punishable with fines or jail phrases of as much as 15 years.
Even earlier than the invasion, the Kremlin had been tightening the screws on its opponents utilizing a mixture of arrests, web censorship and blacklists.
The Kremlin didn’t reply to requests for remark about its dealing with of opposition to the conflict, the instructing information and Shestakov’s case.
Russia’s Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov informed a parliamentary committee in March that his ministry had launched a nationwide drive to debate Russian-Ukrainian relations with pupils, amid questions from kids about the scenario in Ukraine and sanctions.
The Kremlin has stated it’s implementing legal guidelines to thwart extremism and threats to stability. It says it’s conducting what it calls a “particular operation” to destroy its southern neighbour’s navy capabilities and “denazify” Ukraine and stop genocide towards Russian audio system, particularly in the east of the nation. Kyiv and its Western allies have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for conflict, and accuse Russian forces of killing civilians.
WEST’S ‘HYBRID WARFARE’
The instructing information that Shestakov acquired says it’s aimed toward pupils aged between 14 and 18 years. It includes detailed lesson plans for academics, hyperlinks to movies of speeches by President Putin and quick movies for example the classes.
According to the instructing supplies, the West is waging data warfare to attempt to flip public opinion towards Russia’s rulers, and that each one Russian folks want to face agency towards that.
One lesson plan explains Russia was combating a cultural conflict towards the West which had destroyed “the institute of the conventional household” and was now attempting to foist its values on Russia.
It says that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had performed an anti-Russian coverage. “There have been assaults on the Russian language, our frequent historical past was falsified, conflict criminals and legal teams from World War Two have been changed into heroes,” based on the doc, which refers to Ukrainian nationalists who made an alliance with Germany throughout that conflict.
Another lesson says that the West is deploying “hybrid warfare” — a combination of propaganda, financial sanctions, and navy strain — to attempt to defeat Russia by fomenting inside battle. “That is exactly why they urge us to attend unsanctioned demonstrations, they incite us to interrupt the regulation, and attempt to scare us,” it reads.
“We should not succumb to provocation,” the doc says.
The modules embody a recreation the place pupils have 15 seconds to resolve if an announcement is true or false. One assertion reads: “The organisation of protests, provocations of the authorities and mass gatherings are an efficient means of resolving a hybrid battle.” According to the lesson information, the right reply is “false.”
Reuters discovered social media posts from a college in Samara, on the Volga river, and a college in Minusinsk, southern Siberia, displaying slides from the similar displays getting used.
Danil Plotnikov, a math teacher in Chelyabinsk, the Ural mountains, informed Reuters he had been requested by his bosses to show comparable content material however from a distinct instructing pack than the one Shestakov acquired; Plotnikov didn’t determine who the bosses have been. Tatyana Chernenko, a math teacher in Moscow, stated colleagues in different faculties informed her they’d been requested to show comparable modules however they’d not been taught in her college.
The academics Reuters spoke to stated that some areas and faculties pushed the classes more durable than others. None of the 5 academics stated they’d heard of circumstances the place academics have been explicitly ordered to show the modules. They stated it was often framed as a request, or a suggestion by a college or regional schooling authorities.
Some had stated no, and confronted no consequence, stated Daniil Ken, chair of an impartial academics’ commerce union known as Teachers’ Alliance. Others didn’t educate the classes however informed bosses they’d, stated Ken. He added refusing was a danger, with academics not realizing if their head academics would strain them to stop.
Ken stated his union has heard from about half a dozen academics every week who say they’re quitting as a result of they didn’t wish to promote the Kremlin’s line – one thing Reuters wasn’t capable of independently confirm.
POLITICAL AWAKENING
Shestakov wears his hair shut cropped and practices sambo, a martial artwork developed in the Soviet military. He stated his profession in the police included a one-year stint in the inside ministry particular forces, an arm of regulation enforcement whose officers at the moment are combating in Ukraine. The inside ministry didn’t reply to a request for remark.
By 2018, when he was a group officer working with juvenile offenders, he had a political awakening, based on Shestakov. He stated he began watching movies put out by Navalny, the opposition determine who’s now in a Russian jail, alleging corruption by Kremlin leaders.
“I grew to become an actual opposition individual,” Shestakov stated.
He stated when the conflict in Ukraine began, the pictures of casualties disturbed him and he spent hours watching movies of the combating on social media.
Under a pseudonym, he re-posted the movies of interviews with Russian troopers captured in Ukraine to the feedback part of an area media outlet that has about 5,200 subscribers, based on Shestakov and the March 18 court docket ruling seen by Reuters.
The court docket stated his actions have been a violation of a regulation forbidding the discrediting of the Russian armed forces.
Shestakov stated he suspects the FSB has in current weeks been eavesdropping on his cellphone conversations, although he didn’t have proof of that. He additionally stated that he has seen folks he recognises as undercover FSB officers 3 times in current days. The FSB didn’t reply to requests for touch upon whether or not it’s monitoring him.
Now, Shestakov plans to depart Russia as a result of he says he fears additional penalties from authorities. He would be part of tens of hundreds of Kremlin opponents who’ve additionally fled the nation since Putin started cracking down exhausting on opposition in 2018.
He stated he deliberate to go to Turkey, until the authorities bar him from leaving the nation.
Staying and dropping his public opposition to the conflict was not an possibility for him, Shestakov stated. “It will likely be exhausting for me to maintain my mouth shut,” he stated.
(Editing by Christian Lowe and Cassell Bryan-Low)
