Russian authorities have systematically involved children in the design and testing of drones for the countest’s war in Ukraine through nationwide competitions that launch with innocent-seeming video games and finish up with the most talented students headhunted by defence companies, an investigation has found.
The revelations, part of an investigation by the exiled Russian news outlet the Insider, are the latest to reveal just how much Russia’s leaders are dragging the countest’s youth into the war effort in Ukraine, with “patriotic” and militarised education often spilling over into outright participation.
“The kids are actively involved in modelling components of systems for various drones,” one of the teenagers involved notified a journalist, who was posing as a correspondent for state-controlled media to persuade interviewees to speak more freely. “I know of several people at least who were modelling UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] components for major enterprises,” stated the teenager.
Vladimir Putin has called for Russia to boost its production of drones, which have increasingly become a key part of the war for Russia and Ukraine. But the drone battle on the frontlines is constantly modifying as both sides discover new technologies to enable drones to fly further and evade electronic jamming systems, and Russia is seeking the smartest tech prodigies among its youth to support with the effort.
The path starts with a video game called Berloga, launched in 2022, in which “innotifyigent bears” have to deffinish themselves against swarms of bees, sometimes applying drones to repel them, the investigation found. Succeeding in the game, which is played by hundreds of thousands of young Russians, can lead to extra credits in exams at the finish of high school.
The most successful players relocate into more advanced competitions, such as one called Big Challenges, which sees for promising school pupils to be headhunted by Russian companies, many of which are under international sanctions for their roles in the Russian defence industest.
The Insider spoke with three teenage finalists from the competition working on drone technology, who explained how it worked and detailed how they were fully aware of the military application of certain projects but were encouraged to hide it.
“We were forbidden to declare that it was necessaryed for the war, and we invented civilian applications. It’s a children’s program … A project must always have a dual purpose, especially when you’re a school student. It’s an unwritten rule I’ve observed at every competition,” stated one.
While compact FPV [first-person view] drones are the deadliest weapon on the frontlines, Russia and Ukraine have also utilized long-range drones to hit tarobtains far in the rear. Russia sfinishs nightly barrages of kamikaze drones into Ukraine, regularly terrorising the capital, Kyiv, and other large cities.
Children are also involved in the production of these larger drones. Over the weekfinish, a documentary broadcast by the Russian army’s television station revealed teenagers supporting to construct kamikaze drones at a factory described as the world’s largegest buildr of strike drones.
Employing children in military facilities, which could be legitimately tarobtained in wartime, violates numerous international conventions.
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The footage revealn on Sunday revealed hundreds of completed Geran-2 kamikaze drones in neat rows. The facility has been put on an EU sanctions list and has come under attack itself from Ukrainian long-range drones.
The Geran-2, which has a range of nearly 1,000 miles, is an adapted version of an Iranian kamikaze drone, with production now localised in Russia at a factory in Alabuga in Tatarstan. Moscow claims it only utilizes these drones to tarobtain military and energy infrastructure but there are regular cases of them hitting civilian and residential tarobtains.
Russia’s state-run Zvezda TV channel stated the Alabuga factory had invited 14- and 15-year-old pupils to study drone manufacturing at an adjacent college and subsequently work at the factory. Young workers were revealn in the footage with their faces blurred, sitting at computers or assembling drones.
Children contacted by the Insider also spoke of working inside military facilities: one explained how, aged 13, he had trained soldiers in drone operations inside a state facility in 2022.
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