- Russia is indoctrinating its youth with nationalistic, imperialist ideology.
- One college fraternity says it is building "the future elite of Russia."
- Experts told BI that Russia's system of patriotic education is to ensure Putinism remains long after the leader's death.
For years, Russia's youth has been fed hardline nationalistic ideology as the Kremlin has sought to engineer a new generation of Putin clones.
In July last year, Sergei Novikov, a senior Kremlin official, said that Russia was fighting three wars — a war on the frontlines in Ukraine, an economic war, and an ideological war "for the minds of young people."
The Russian government has taken significant steps to win that battle for young minds by pumping money into so-called "patriotic education."
The Kremlin is set to allocate around 45.85 billion rubles (roughly $520 million) toward "patriot projects" in 2024, Russia's RBC daily reported last year.
State-run youth groups have also dramatically increased in size since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The "Movement of the First" group, which aims to provide Russian children with the "education of a citizen and a patriot," was launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022. It had just shy of 5 million members as of January this year, Russian officials have said.
The group's head said it had opened around 40,000 offices across Russia as of December 2023, per Russia's state-run TASS news agency.
Ian Garner, a historian and analyst of Russian culture and war propaganda, believes such figures indicate that scenes of young Russians fleeing the country, spoiling ballot boxes, and publicly protesting are "ancient history."
"Russia knows that that generation is probably never going to become super ideological," Garner said.
So instead, "Russia is piling huge amounts of money and resources, and has been for the last decade, into creating a highly ideologized, highly nationalized younger generation."
Mikhail Komin, a visiting fellow with the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told BI that new "ideological subjects" introduced in Russian schools and universities will likely lead, in the next decade, to a generation of Russian youth that will "share conservative values" and be "much more anti-Western."
'Fraternity of the Academics'
One of the most conservative Russian college fraternities is the "Fraternity of the Academics."
The Academics frat opposes Ukrainian statehood and views Russia as a "third Rome" — the idea that the country, led by Moscow, is the successor to the former Roman capitals of Rome and Constantinople — and "a unique civilization, distinguished from others by its special spiritual and historical mission."
"Russia," a line on the fraternity's website reads, "does not end anywhere."
Nikita Izyumov, a coordinator for the Academics, told BI that they "openly and explicitly promote Imperial ideals in society."
"We inherit the ancient imperial tradition of the first Rome and the new Rome, which accept Christ," he added.
The organization is sponsored by the West-sanctioned Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeyev, the owner of the nationalist Tsargrad media network.
The Fraternity of the Academics uses a website, social media, and a YouTube channel to attract potential recruits.
The frat said in January that it had around 1,000 members across 28 regions of Russia.
Izyumov said the Academics had a presence in "almost every major university in Russia."
For its part, the Kremlin is "wary of working directly with [Tsargrad and the Fraternity]," Komin said. "It considers them too radical."
The various Academics fraternity cells are largely similar in style, though some display more extreme behavior than others.
The Chelyabinsk cell, for example, is one of the more extreme variants, publishing anti-immigrant news, memes that attempt to demean members of the LGBTQ+ community, and writing disparagingly about local feminists.
But the Academics' marginal status has meant that its main acts have largely involved "denouncing certain artists or activists as 'anti-Russian' on social media and getting concerts canceled," David Lewis, a professor of politics at the University of Exeter, told BI.
Preparing to fight in Ukraine
"One of the tasks of the Academics is to train defenders of the Fatherland," Izymov said.
They learn drone control skills, weave camouflage nets, make trench candles, and even conduct masterclasses for students on how to make an army dry shower.
"A man in Russia has always been a warrior, it was the case 1000 years ago and will be the case in another 1000 years," Izyumov said. "If an academic decides to go to the front, we give him all the necessary support."
The UK's Ministry of Defence has confirmed that some members of the Fraternity have already gone to fight in Ukraine.
Creating the next generation of Putin clones
According to the UK's MoD, the existence of such a movement shows that "there is a constituency in Russia for a more militant approach towards both the war on Ukraine and the West."
The department says that this will likely impact the "generational turnover that is likely to take place in the Russian administrative elites over the rest of this decade."
The Academics organization says it will form "the future elite of Russia."
But the government wishes to "avoid the rise of a powerful ultra-patriotic movements that could become a future threat to the regime," Lewis said.
"On the one hand, the Kremlin wants to see more of this kind of 'patriotic' civil society, but it also wants to make sure it remains under strict political control," he added. It's all part of "a much bigger campaign to target the next generation of Russian youth."
Though not huge, what organizations like the Fraternity of the Academics provide is the "illusion of choice," Garner said.
Young people might participate in the youth army, they might participate in a much smaller club like the Fraternity of the Academics, he continued. "But when you strip back the layers, they're really all disseminating the same messages that are highly charged with this nationalist, hateful ideology."
Young people are made to feel that if they want a successful career, or want to participate in civil society, they have "no option but to participate in some manifestation of these organizations," Garner added.
It is an attempt to keep Putinism alive even after the leader is dead and buried. "Putin isn't essential to the Putinist project," he said.