On September 1, 2024, a new subject, “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland,” will be introduced in all schools in the occupied territories. It is for students in the final 8th and 10th grades. Teachers will be trained by the Warrior Center.
A key element of the new program will be mandatory 5-day military training on the basis of the Avangard network of centers. Thousands of Ukrainian children—hostages of Putin’s empire, in violation of the Geneva Convention—will be taught to kill their Ukrainian fellow citizens on a regular basis and without fail.
However, the enemy has been carefully and systematically preparing for the creation of this propaganda military children’s network. Here is a brief historical overview of Avangard.
The start of Avangard is preparation for a great war
Back in September 2019, the then Minister of Defense of the occupiers, General Shoigu, laid the foundation stone for the construction of the first “educational and methodological center for military and patriotic education of youth” called Avangard near Moscow. The center, which opened in early 2021, covers 28 hectares.
In the schools of the occupying country, the study of the basics of military affairs has long been a part of the compulsory curriculum of the last two grades of secondary school.
“General Kartapolov, the “supervisor” of the Avangardes, Deputy Minister of Defense, has publicly declared the project’s support by the first person of the empire.
Before the invasion of Ukraine
A year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, General Kartapolov, the “watcher,” sent 49-page “Methodological Recommendations” to the heads of the regions on the creation of “Avangards” in the subjects of the empire, as well as youth training centers, “Houses of the Youth. The document describes in detail the experience of the centers built, what they should look like, what the program should be, and how to implement it.
In May 2021, Shoigu personally assigned the task of deploying the Avangard network to representatives of all “subjects of the federation,” including the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol. The implementation of Putin’s order received a new, strong impetus.
Despite the pandemic, which has slowed the imperialists’ ardor, Shoigu said that 27 Avangards had already been created, most of whom had already begun training and reached more than 20,000 children. By the end of 2021, it was planned to open 36 more centers in most regions of the country. And they actively began to fulfill Putin’s order to create Avangards in all cities with a population of 100,000 or more.
In the year of the invasion of Ukraine
“Avangard in Odintsovo (near Moscow) trained more than 60,000 young men and women from Moscow and the Moscow region in its first two years of operation. “There are not only walls or some military simulators here, but the spirit and atmosphere are different,” the mayor of the Russian capital said of the center. The imperial authorities continued to actively popularize and disseminate the Moscow experience in the provinces.
Under the guidance of instructors, teachers, and counselors, children learn five military specialties in a 35-hour program defined by the Ministry of Defense. The standard group for one session is 50–200 people. Everyone is on barracks duty. In the summer, camp shifts last 12 days.
On the border with Ukraine and in the “Hinterland”
As of May 2023, six Avangard centers were already operating in Rostov Oblast alone, as promised by the governor at a conference call with Shoigu two years earlier.
In the Belgorod region, two stationary Avangard centers have been under construction from scratch since November 2022. They are being built on the territory of Novooskolsky and Prokhorovsky municipalities. In the former (incidentally, an ancient Ukrainian Cossack settlement), there is a complex for 150 people, and in the latter, a twice as large one for 450 people. The latter is part of the infrastructure of the museum reserve.
In the Voronezh region, Avangard was built at the end of 2022 for 55 million rubles on the basis of the Zolotoy Kolos children’s rehabilitation center in the village of Sredny Ikorets. As of March 2024, the 16th shift had already been held there.
The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military and Social Policy stated:
“…in the context of the special military operation [in Ukraine], the work on the creation of Avangard centers by the regions was not stopped but rather increased.”
“Avangard” in Crimea
The launch of the Avangard centers in Crimea was done with obvious haste. It was reported in passing, without much fanfare: “In schools in the 2023–2024 school year, basic military training lessons have begun.” The work was also not very public. For example, the opening of the center in Kerch went unnoticed by Ukrainian monitors. The Crimean occupation authorities “highlighted” only the “regional” center near Yevpatoria.
What’s next?
The Russian enemy will certainly be held accountable for its crimes. First of all, for the emasculating of Ukrainian identity and the genocide of the Ukrainian people. We ask those who are not indifferent to report the crimes of the occupiers at this link. Help bring the time of Ukraine’s liberation closer.
