IEŚ Policy Papers 8/2025
Mykhailo Honchar | Andrzej Szabaciuk
ISBN: 978-83-68760-07-1
Liczba stron: 47
Format:
Wydanie: Lublin 2025
Opis:
Executive summary
■ Education as an instrument of institutional occupation
Russian educational policy in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine constitutes a fundamental instrument of institutional occupation rather than a humanitarian initiative. By controlling the learning environment, the Russian Federation aims to secure the cognitive domain, dismantling the socio-cultural foundations of the Ukrainian state to replace them with narratives compliant with Russian geopolitical interests. Schools have been transformed from centres of learning into primary mechanisms for legitimising the Russian presence, where the educational infrastructure serves as an “anchor” for the regime to project an image of normalcy and irreversibility.
■ Evolution of strategy: The hybrid and scaled stages
The evolution of this strategy is distinctively marked by two chronological phases: the “Hybrid” Stage (2014–2021) and the “Scaled” Stage (post-2022). The initial phase in Crimea and the Donbas focused on a gradual legal transition and the co-optation of existing local personnel to maintain stability. In contrast, the post-2022 invasion phase in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions involved an aggressive, rapid unification of educational content with Russian federal norms. This second stage is characterised by the creation of management systems “from scratch”, often bypassing local structures due to a lack of loyal cadres.
■ Management crisis: Personnel shortages and instability
The administrative management of education in these territories reveals a heavy reliance on imported personnel, or “Varangians”, due to the scarcity of local collaborators. While the 2014 occupation of Crimea saw a smooth transition using former Ukrainian officials, the 2022 occupation faced a severe deficit of professionals willing to cooperate. Consequently, Russia has deployed officials from its own federal regions to head local ministries, using the occupied territories as career springboards for Kremlin bureaucrats. This has led to significant personnel turbulence, with the average tenure of a regional “Minister of Education” lasting no more than 1–1.5 years due to corruption scandals, incompetence, and internal power struggles.
■ Coercion and incentives: The struggle for collaboration
To secure the compliance of teaching staff, the occupation administration employs a mix of coercion and financial incentives. In mid-2022, teachers in the Kherson region were offered salaries ranging from 645 USD to 725 USD, with directors offered up to 2,400 USD – amounts significantly higher than average wages in many Russian regions. Despite these incentives and the threat of repression, preliminary estimates suggest that the number of Ukrainian educators who chose conscious collaboration did not exceed 1%. The motivations for those who did collaborate range from adaptive survival strategies to ideological affinity with the “Russian world”.
■ Resistance and the “educational underground”
Conversely, the resistance of Ukrainian educators has proven to be a significant obstacle to Russian integration plans. Unlike the situation in 2014, the post-2022 period saw a robust “educational underground”. Strategies of resistance included mass migration, refusal to cooperate, and the clandestine teaching of the Ukrainian curriculum. As of May 2024, 1,975 educators (about 0.5% of the total) remained in occupied territories while refusing to work for the occupier, maintaining their employment relationship with Ukraine. This resistance highlights that while Russia controls the physical school buildings, it struggles to command the human capital necessary for effective indoctrination.
■ Curriculum weaponisation: Erasure of identity
The curriculum imposed is designed to systematically erase the Ukrainian national identity. The Ukrainian language and history have been removed from the syllabus and replaced with narratives that present Ukraine as an enemy and Russia as the only “Motherland”. In Crimea, for instance, not a single school remains with Ukrainian as the language of instruction. New textbooks, such as the “History of Donbas and Novorossiya”, are being introduced to cement the official interpretation of history as Russia’s struggle for the “reunification of historical lands”, effectively depriving children of the cognitive tools to critically assess their reality.
■ Systemic militarisation of youth
A central pillar of this policy is the aggressive militarisation of youth, transforming schools into recruitment centres for future soldiers. Children are integrated into Russian paramilitary organisations like Yunarmia and the Movement of the First and are subjected to mandatory rituals such as “Conversations on Important Things” (Razgovory o vazhnom) and the “Hero’s Desk” (Parta Heroya) initiative. This system normalises war, framing military service and dying for Russia as the highest civic duty. The visual and rhetorical saturation of the school environment with war symbols aims to remove moral barriers regarding violence.
■ Strategic goals and systemic vulnerabilities
Ultimately, the report concludes that the Russian educational system in the occupied territories is a cohesive mechanism for forced assimilation and social mobilisation. Approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children are viewed as a strategic demographic resource to be moulded into loyal Russian subjects. However, the analysis argues that this system remains inherently vulnerable due to its reliance on coercion, the administrative instability of the occupation regime, and the persistent agency and resistance of Ukrainian families and educators who continue to maintain cultural and educational links with Ukraine.
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