Russia's Propaganda Targets Young Kids While The War In Ukraine Rages

As the war in Ukraine rages, propaganda by the Russian government is aimed at young children, The Daily Star reported.

Russia has been militarized and is now more focused on being at war than at peace, but the inclusion of children has alarmed anti-war activists and child psychologists.

Children as young as four have started donning the uniforms of the FSB security service's border guards and practicing their marching, which is a grim indicator of the shift.

Others have organized fundraising efforts to support the Ukrainian front-line soldiers.

Images of youngsters undergoing military training with their names stitched on their little uniforms, indicating that they have been recruited as "cadets," are being used by the Kremlin propaganda machine to instill a sense of "universal patriotism" among the Russian populace.

Children from some of the earliest years of education have been attending local events as part of the effort to rally the population to the cause.

More than 100 students from Kindergarten Number 11 in Kursk came to Southwestern State University wearing guard uniforms and small name tags that said "cadets."

Grandfather Frost, the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas, visited the event dubbed Time for Miracles.

The children's uniform represents the FSB counter-intelligence service, one of the most infamous and feared branches of the Russian military.

Elena Kuznetsova, a child psychologist, expressed her horror at the action and claimed that it celebrates death.

“This dressing up into military fatigues should not be done," she said, “this is romanticizing and decorating the worst thing in our lives – war."

She also said, “the message children receive as a result of such actions by adults is that war is great…."

“Any war ends up with lives that were not lived, from both sides. With mass and individual graves,” she added.

To hit home the horrors and reality of how at odds real war and children in uniforms are, she said, “in some cases, there is no one to even visit these graves to commemorate the fallen."

“Because wars don’t choose how many people from one family to take as a fee for people’s inability to live in peace," she added.

“Wars just don’t choose….this is what we must pass on to our children,” she continued, “the military uniform is a dress for death."