After the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian authorities have systematically turned military training into a mandatory part of the school curriculum. In 2023, military training camps were incorporated into the Life Safety Basics course (OBZh), and since 2024 not only 10th graders but also 8th graders have been sent to them.
❗️The media outlet "Vot Tak" published an investigation into how Russia is building a system of mandatory military training for schoolchildren and how much money is being spent on it.
For this investigation, the Ne Norma project conducted a special analysis of VK school communities. In total, school public pages have published 32,155 posts about military training camps. Before September 2021, there had been only 3,583 such posts, while in the 2024–2025 academic year alone there were already 8,800 — an increase of nearly 2.5 times.
The main instrument of this system is the network of Avangard military-patriotic centers, which now includes 147 centers across the country. Over five days, teenagers are taught to shoot, operate drones, and act under conditions of a chemical attack. In just one Avangard center in the Moscow region, 200,000 teenagers have passed through the program over five years.
At the same time, refusing to participate in military training camps is virtually impossible. The mother of a 10th-grade student from Sverdlovsk region said that teachers openly warn students that without attending the camps, they will fail the subject and will not be allowed into 11th grade.
Official data on funding for the Avangard centers is not disclosed, but journalists estimate that since 2020 at least 36.5 billion rubles (approximately $486 million) have been allocated for their creation and operation. Most of the money has gone toward infrastructure and equipment.
Alongside military training, the Avangard centers are also used for systematic recruitment into the army and security services. Representatives of the FSB, the Federal Protective Service, and military universities hold meetings with cadets, distribute brochures, and promise bonus points for university admission. Daria Borisova, director of the flagship center, openly states the goal: according to her, the share of teenagers willing to serve rises from about 50% to 90% after just five days of training.
❗️Journalists also confirmed the first known death in the war against Ukraine of a participant who had attended military training camps at an Avangard center.
In addition to Avangard, the authorities are developing another federal network — the Voin military-patriotic centers. The network currently has 21 branches, four of them located in occupied regions. Putin ordered the creation of this structure one day before the mobilization announcement in September 2022. Since then, nearly 15 billion rubles have been spent on it from the federal budget.
