Russia’s War Children – How the Kremlin Is Systematically Recruiting Students for War

How serious the Russian state is about the systematic militarization of children is revealed by our research into the preliminary rounds of Zarnitsa 2.0 in the Ural Federal District: What was once a harmless school game with a sporting character is now a paramilitary large-scale maneuver orchestrated by the highest state authorities. The participants – many of them still minors – were not welcomed by teachers but by a plenipotentiary of the Russian president himself, flanked by regional power brokers and veterans with official hero status. This staging alone is aimed at instilling in children an early sense of loyalty and military duty toward the state. The children competed in units with names like "Army North" or "Army South" and conducted realistic maneuvers with clear command hierarchy – including capturing strategic points, tactical movement, and responding to simulated gunfire.

What stands out: this is not about symbolic reenactments or abstract war games, but about military imitation with real drill. The young participants wear uniforms, follow ranking structures, march, lay wreaths for fallen soldiers, and recite oaths. It is a psychological and pedagogical program deliberately designed to turn children into willing agents in the service of a militarized state. The role of the "Movement of the First" and the "Youth Army" (Yunarmiya) is central: they provide the ideological framework, logistics, and political backing. What is happening here is not patriotic education – it is systematic war socialization in childhood. An abuse of education, of loyalty, of future. And all this in a country that glorifies its victims as heroes and raises its children to be soldiers.

In Russia, children are no longer simply being prepared for the future – they are being deliberately maneuvered into it. In the midst of a war that the Kremlin refuses to call a war, hundreds of thousands of students are now being trained to build, program, and operate drones – ultimately to be used in the killing of Ukrainian civilians. Officially, it is about promoting technical skills, supporting gifted students, and preparing for careers. Unofficially, a state-sponsored network is emerging that is unprecedented in its systematic structure: a pipeline system of competitions, clubs, and learning platforms that integrates young people early into the military-technological establishment – with bonuses for final exams, career promises, and patriotic pathos. What sounds like a dark episode of Black Mirror is Russian education policy in the year 2025.

The platform "Berloga," which means Bear Cave, was ceremoniously launched as early as 2022 in occupied Sevastopol. The first "mission": a game in which children, as "intelligent bears," use drones to fight enemy "bees" – a barely disguised metaphor for Ukrainian cities and armed forces. Players deliver "energy honey" – a fantasy currency used to rate drone flights and unlock new capabilities. The "energy honey" symbolizes military efficiency and technological progress and specifically rewards those children who excel in drone operation –, program flight routes, improve drone types, and collaboratively develop new designs. Over 600,000 young people have participated so far. What looks like gamification is in fact an entry point into military talent development. Those who perform well in Berloga move on to the NTI club system – a nationwide infrastructure for gifted youth directly networked with the Ministry of Defense and defense-related corporations. The next stage: the Archipelago intensive course or admission to the "Big Challenges" program at the Sirius Center, led by Putin confidante Yelena Shmeleva. There, students do not develop hypothetical scenarios – they build functional prototypes for companies such as Roscosmos, Almaz-Antey, Rosatom, or Geoscan. In one round, the task was to develop a kamikaze drone type that would cause the same damage but be significantly cheaper than existing models. In another, students constructed a drone-based reconnaissance and evacuation system operated with thermal imaging. A 17-year-old student worked on improving GPS resistance for drones, another on software for identifying enemy objects. Again and again, project descriptions included names like Yakovlev, NT-MDT, or the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – partner companies whose military role is unclear or whose leadership is under Western sanctions. Yet it is precisely these companies that recruit talent from the school programs – sometimes with work contracts, sometimes with early university placements.