Nearly 100 militarised classes created in schools of occupied Luhansk Oblast
More than 250 specialised classes – over a third of them militarised – are set to function in schools of Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast in the new academic year starting on 1 September.
Source: Oleksii Kharchenko, Head of Luhansk Oblast Military Administration
Details: Schools in the so-called "Luhansk People's Republic", a Russian-backed terror organisation, will offer 265 specialised classes in the 2025-2026 school year. More than a third of them (95) will have a military focus.
"Boys and girls will be pushed towards war from childhood," Kharchenko said.
For comparison, only 20 engineering classes, 11 medical classes and 3 emergency service classes have been formed. Earlier, Luhansk Oblast Military Administration reported that only about 20 agricultural classes had been planned.
"The Russians do not care about the future of Luhansk Oblast. They need to fulfil their bloody political ambitions at the expense of youth from the occupied territory," Kharchenko emphasised.
Background:
- Earlier it became known that high-school students in occupied Luhansk Oblast are being encouraged to sign contracts with the Russian Armed Forces. They are promised money and a social package in return.
- In 2024, the Russians planned to distribute over 100,000 diaries containing rewritten local history to schoolchildren in temporarily occupied areas of Luhansk Oblast and to involve "Cossacks" in the educational process.
- The Russians took children from the occupied settlement of Bilovodsk in Luhansk Oblast to a military camp in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. The schoolchildren, aged 11 to 17, are being coerced into military training in the tent city, which the Russians call the Young Army Camp.
- In addition, the Russians introduced dictionaries into schools in occupied Luhansk Oblast containing terms related to the "protection of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, culture, and historical memory." Included expressions are "foreign agent," "civic identity," "Russian Cossacks" and "threat to national security."
- In 2023, Luhansk Oblast Military Administration reported that the Russians were opening centres in the occupied territories to prepare teenagers for war. At the first stage, they planned to involve around 4,000 boys aged 14 to 17, training them in military professions experiencing a personnel shortage.
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