Free Republic

A shocking new video out of Crimea shows Russian efforts to recruit and indoctrinate kids by forcing them through military training exercises, including martial arts lessons and rifle-handling classes. Shared by Russian state media, the disturbing recording shows a young boy and girl in Simferopol, the peninsula’s second-largest city, racing to assemble Kalashnikov-style rifles at their desks, according to a report from Business Insider. When the two finish — within moments of each other — another student asks, “Who won?” Then the video cuts to a group of Crimean schoolchildren toting rifles in what looks like the lobby of a...

A military course for schoolchildren taught youngsters how to disperse street protests in Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported. Researchers registered at least 1,000 more protests in 2018 than in previous years as Russians took to the streets over pension age hikes, rising gas prices and other issues. Activists face a range of hurdles organizing and holding these events, including difficulties with obtaining approval and being subjected to intimidation tactics, researchers found. A patriotic course in Yekaterinburg staged a live demonstration with men armed with sticks and Molotov cocktails playing violent protesters, the 66.ru news site reported...

Whether you like it or not, Joseph Stalin was one of the greatest anti-fascists in the history of the anti-fascist movement. Under Stalin's command, the Red Army defeated the nazis and saved several ethnic groups from nazi extermination. This is a legacy we cannot forget.

The Gulag forced-labor camps in the USSR were “a good thing” as prisoners worked there to the benefit of the state, a 23-year-old local MP in Yekaterinburg said, and was slammed online as a “monster” in need of a history lesson. “Gulag is, actually, a good thing. Previously, the people were sent to work under supervision – at least, there was some benefit from them. But now, the inmates – rapists and murderers – just drink builder’s tea and do nothing, while we waste our money on them,” Andrey Pirozhkov, a recently-elected Communist Party MP in the Yekaterinburg’s local parliament,...

The ruling United Russia party’s youth wing staged a protest on Thursday against Mormon missionaries, accusing them of being American spies and calling for them to leave Russia. Activists from Young Guard gathered outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Russian headquarters in Moscow, chanting slogans such as “No to foreign agents!” and hoisting placards reading “Foo, CIA!” They also left a symbolic plane ticket, emblazoned with the CIA logo, for a one-way flight from Moscow to Washington outside the headquarters. “This is an American sect,” said Ekaterina Stenyakina, co-chair of Young Guard’s coordinating committee. “They are funded...

It's official. To be patriotic in Russia is to be a fan of Putin, specifically a Putin Youth. During the celebration on June 12th of Independence Day (Russia from the Soviet Union in 1990), "the only groups allowed onto Red Square were the youth group Nashi" - which means "ours" - "the Young Guard and Young Russia," according to Sergei, a Nashi supporter. Tickets were carefully dispensed only to the faithful near the Krasny Ploshad Metro from a truck, I finally discovered after questioning a dozen reluctant people holding the tickets. The 120,000-odd Putin Youth members are perhaps the most...

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia". Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland. With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult. But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a...

It's 7:30 on a Saturday morning in July. On the scenic shores of Lake Seliger, about 360 kilometers northwest of Moscow in the Tver region, some 3,000 young Russians are emerging sleepily from their tents underneath tall birch trees, summoned to morning assembly and exercises by the booming strains of the Russian national anthem. Camp Seliger offers its teenage denizens hiking, swimming, sports, and cookouts. But this camp has a twist. It is run by a new political youth movement called Nashi ("Our Own" in Russian). Its purpose, along with outdoor summer fun, is to build up patriotic fervor in...

THE sun rises over several hundred tents next to blue lakes. At the stroke of 7am, large speakers blare Soviet-era patriotic songs and bright-eyed youths emerge for another day of physical and ideological instruction. This is the first summer-camp of Nashi (Ours), a youth organisation set up by the Kremlin this year to support President Putin. It has assembled 3,000 teenagers from across Russia for two weeks of fun, training and political indoctrination. The organisers have spared no expense. They pay for all travel expenses, the rent of the idyllic location 200 miles north of Moscow, the tents, sailing and...

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is one of President Vladimir Putin's closest confidants and is regularly mentioned as a possible successor to Putin in 2008, made some uncharacteristic political statements in a 1 March interview with "Moskovskii komsomolets." "Only democrats, with their split personalities, could believe that we might get help from abroad," Ivanov said. "Nobody will help us except ourselves. Therefore we should be powerful and capable of guaranteeing our national security in any situation."' He also criticized Russian liberals for viewing Russia only as "a money-making enterprise." Recent Russian media reports indicate that the Kremlin has ordered...

Russia to Instill Youth With Patriotism Through War, Video Games 02.11.2004 MosNews The Russian government plans to revive a Soviet-era program aimed at instilling a sense of patriotism in the country’s youth through an ongoing series of sports events, rallies, clubs, military training games, and even patriotic video games in hopes to replace the popular DOOM. The developers of the $23 million program — which will be called Ready for Work and Defense of the Motherland — have joined forces with the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, and asked the Ministry of Finance to...