On eve of school start, education leaders hail military instructors

The top federal education official that visited Murmansk ahead of school start got an introduction to the work of the Voin Center in Murmansk.

On display for the distinguished guest were machine guns, anti-artillery weaponry, grenades, drones and communication tech.

First Deputy Minister Aleksandr Bugaev (second left) together with Murmansk Minister of Education Diana Kuznetsova (left), Senator Tatiana Sakharova (center) and Head of the Voin Center in Murmansk Aleksei Chufurev (right). Photo: Voin Center in Murmansk on VK

“Although it was opened only six months ago, many were impressed by the level of technical equipment of the Voin Center in Murmansk region,” the center writes on its social media page.

First Deputy Minister Bugaev was accompanied by regional Governor Andrei Chibis and Senator Tatiana Sakharova.

Voin Center in Murmansk had its weapons on display for the federal deputy minister. Photo: Voin Murmansk on VK

The center is part of a federal organisation that is increasingly intimately cooperating with the school system. The Voin was established on an initiative from top Kremlin official Sergei Kirienko and developed in cooperation with militant Chechen groups.

The center is first of all training teenage boys in the age 14-18 for service in the Armed Forces. Secondly, it train reservist men aged 18-35 for combat in the so-called “special military operation.”

Military training is increasingly integrated in the Russian school system. This year, the teaching program will include a new subject called ‘military preparedness.’ It comes in addition to the propaganda classes with so-called ‘conversations about important issues,’ as well as the so-called ‘Family science’ about “traditional values.”

The Russian school year starts on 1st of September.

In an interview with the Russian version of the Barents Observer, a school teacher says that “the situation in the country is very difficult.”

“I am terrified, but if I get in a state of panic and transfer this to the children and their parents, nothing good will come from it,” she says.

“Everything is corrupted, everything is collapsing,” she adds.