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Russia will introduce Soviet-era compulsory military training to high schoolers.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the country will implement military training into the high school curriculum, with tests running as early as next year.
According to the outlet, Russian Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov confirmed: "It will be introduced in schools starting from the next academic year. Now it is being drafted and after January 1, it will begin to be tested.”
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Deputy Defense Minister Valery Gerasimov believes that students should have to undergo 140 hours during the last two years of study, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestia.
He also stated that existing teachers should be retrained, with additional staff being recruited.
According to the outlet, training would include learning first aid, navigation skills, and handling rifles.
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While some teachers supported the idea of basic military training for students, some teachers told the outlet that the high school curriculum would ‘overload’.
The head of the A Just Russia party and Kremlin-friendly leader Sergei Mironov supported the move as he believed it would prepare the nation for future conflicts.
“Adding this subject would systematically prepare citizens for a possible confrontation with the enemy,” he told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia daily, as per The Moscow Times.
Russia retired its high school military basic training in 1993, two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, talk of returning the program was prompted by ill-equipped soldiers recruited for the Ukraine invasion and the government's struggle to find volunteers.
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Earlier this year, The Sun reported that a group of Russian soldiers who Ukrainian forces had captured claimed that they were thrown into battle by ‘jackals’ without efficient training.
One soldier, given the pseudonym Vadim, told the publication he was not aware he was being shipped to Ukraine to fight and only was made aware once he crossed the border.
He said: “We were ordered to fan out the vehicles and given co-ordinates to fire. We didn’t know what we were firing at, but now I have been told that we were hitting a village with civilians.”
Vadim added: “A lot of people think it is the second army in the world, but we have nothing. We have no training, we have no equipment and it is a crime to say that in Russia."
Topics: News, Russia, Ukraine, World News, Politics