Prosecutors filed nearly 600 lawsuits against Russian schools, demanding classrooms be equipped to new “patriotic” standards

Prosecutors filed nearly 600 lawsuits against Russian schools, demanding classrooms be equipped to new “patriotic” standards

Prosecutors across Russia are taking schools to court, forcing them to buy expensive equipment for lessons in the subject “Fundamentals of Homeland Security and Defense.” Since 2024, when the law introducing this subject was adopted, prosecutors have filed at least 597 lawsuits against educational institutions, Verstka calculated after analyzing court databases.

The agency sued schools in at least 42 regions of Russia, as well as in annexed Crimea. Prosecutors lost only 22 cases. In all other instances, the court ordered schools to find funding and equip the classrooms.

Under the law on this subject, schools must cultivate in children a “readiness to fulfill the duty of defending the Fatherland” and, for this purpose, buy weapon mock-ups, UAV kits, and build obstacle courses if they cannot take teenagers to military training camps.

For example, a school with 9 classes in the village of Bakhmutovo in Kaluga Region built for these lessons a maze, a trench, a foxhole, a destroyed bridge, a destroyed staircase, and a wall with breaches. The obstacle course will create “new opportunities” for rural schoolchildren, the school administration is convinced.

Read about how schools are being forced to buy equipment for these lessons on the website in an investigation by Verstka and the project Ne Norma (with VPN):

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