Russia trains teenage influencers for pro-war content

MOSCOW

Russia's military-patriotic movement Yunarmiya cadets march at Red Square during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 7, 2017. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Russia is trying to produce more pro-war influencers through content creation camps, training teenagers to spread the Kremlin's hardline, anti-West narrative to the next generation.

Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has ramped up control of the domestic information space, outlawing criticism of the offensive through strict military censorship laws, throttling foreign media outlets and pushing its agenda across society.

Schools and young people have been targeted: Curricula and textbooks changed to include Russia's justification for its invasion and soldiers dispatched to whip up pro-war enthusiasm in the classroom.

At one content creation camp in early April, more than 120 teenagers, clad in green sweaters and red berets, gathered in Moscow for lectures from soldiers and state media reporters on how to produce videos, use artificial intelligence and build audiences.

"We have created a huge team of kids, who understand how to broadcast government values and our organization’s values," Vladislav Golovin, a former soldier and chief of the general staff of Russia's Young Army cadets movement, said in a statement released by the group.

In a promotional video from the event, children were shown cheering a cadet racing against Golovin to see who could reload a sniper rifle the fastest.

Another organization, the Movement of the First, runs competitions offering rewards for teenagers with the best blogs and biggest followings.

The training camps are part of what Keir Giles, director of the U.K.-based Conflict Studies Research Centre, calls a "concentrated campaign to restore the prestige of the Russian military."

"These 14-16-year-olds have grown up in an environment where they have never known anything other than Putinism. This is their reality, and so we should not be surprised if these new efforts to spread information reflect that reality," he told AFP.

The drive to instill young Russians with Kremlin-approved values comes from the very top.

In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin quoted Otto Van Bismarck to summarize his approach.

"Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests," Putin said in a televised press conference.

"Educating young people in the spirit of patriotism is crucial," he added.

The revival of Soviet-era youth organizations, like the Young Army, Yunarmiya in Russian, and Movement of the First, which says it has 14 million online members and 1,100 regional initiatives, has been integral to those efforts.

In their beige military uniforms with red berets, the rows of teenage cadets often resemble a bright poppy field at set-piece state events, like grand military parades dedicated to Soviet victory in World War II.

As Russia has clamped down on media and the internet since ordering troops into Ukraine, the campaign has moved online.

AI and disinformation expert at the Technological University of Berlin, Veronika Solopova, said social media algorithms are ripe for the Kremlin to spread its narrative, delivering individually tailored content to evoke an emotional response.

"Young people are famously easy to radicalize, easy to jump to conclusions on the nature of injustices, which, for Russia, is then all conveniently converted into army enrolments," she added.