WARSAW, April 19 \u2014 Russia is trying to produce more pro-war influencers through content creation camps, training teenagers to spread the Kremlin\u2019s hardline, anti-West narrative to the next generation.<\/p>\n
Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has ramped up control of the domestic information space, outlawing criticism of the offensive through strict military censorship laws, throttling foreign media outlets and pushing its agenda across society.<\/p>\n
Schools and young people have been targeted \u2014 curricula and textbooks changed to include Russia\u2019s justification for its invasion and soldiers despatched to whip up pro-war enthusiasm in the classroom.<\/p>\n
At one content creation camp in early April, more than 120 teenagers, clad in green sweaters and red berets, gathered in Moscow for lectures from soldiers and state media reporters on how to produce videos, use artificial intelligence and build audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have created a huge team of kids, who understand how to broadcast government values and our organisation\u2019s values,\u201d Vladislav Golovin, a former soldier and chief of the general staff of Russia\u2019s Young Army cadets movement, said in a statement released by the group.<\/p>\n
In a promotional video from the event, children were shown cheering a cadet racing against Golovin to see who could reload a sniper rifle the fastest.<\/p>\n
Another organisation, the Movement of the First, runs competitions offering rewards for teenagers with the best blogs and biggest followings.<\/p>\n
\u2018Easy to radicalise\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The training camps are part of what Keir Giles, director of the UK-based Conflict Studies Research Centre, calls a \u201cconcentrated campaign to restore the prestige of the Russian military.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese 14\u201316-year-olds have grown up in an environment where they have never known anything other than Putinism. This is their reality, and so we should not be surprised if these new efforts to spread information reflect that reality,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n The drive to instil young Russians with Kremlin-approved values comes from the very top.<\/p>\n In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin quoted Otto Van Bismarck to summarise his approach.<\/p>\n \u201cWars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests,\u201d Putin said in a televised press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cEducating young people in the spirit of patriotism is crucial,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The revival of Soviet-era youth organisations, like the Young Army, Yunarmiya in Russian, and Movement of the First \u2014 which says it has 14 million online members and 1,100 regional initiatives \u2014 has been integral to those efforts.<\/p>\n In their beige military uniforms with red berets, the rows of teenage cadets often resemble a bright poppy field at set-piece state events, like grand military parades dedicated to Soviet victory in World War II.<\/p>\n As Russia has clamped down on media and the internet since ordering troops into Ukraine, the campaign has moved online.<\/p>\n AI and disinformation expert at the Technological University of Berlin, Veronika Solopova, said social media algorithms are ripe for the Kremlin to spread its narrative, delivering individually tailored content to evoke an emotional response.<\/p>\n \u201cYoung people are famously easy to radicalise, easy to jump to conclusions on the nature of injustices, which, for Russia, is then all conveniently converted into army enrolments,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u2018Behind the camera\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n More than half of Russians aged 18-24 say social media is their main source of news, polling by the independent Levada Centre found in March.<\/p>\n Young people\u2019s \u201cshorter attention spans, combined with the effortless shareability of clips and reels, make digital content an exceptionally powerful tool,\u201d said Giorgi Revishvili, a former Senior Advisor to the National Security Council of Georgia.<\/p>\n Social media content can be \u201cdirect and radical\u201d or \u201cvery subtle, aimed not at generating support for Russia, but at decreasing solidarity with Ukraine,\u201d said Dietmar Pichler, a disinformation and propaganda analyst at INVED.<\/p>\n At the training camp in Moscow, the Young Army cadets were quick to grasp the power of their new skills.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you are the one behind the camera filming the entire process, making audiences happy, you realise … you are the one who has aroused these emotions in people,\u201d a girl said in a promotional clip published by the organisers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth lies in a frame, and we are operating the camera.\u201d \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, April 19 \u2014 Russia is trying to produce more pro-war influencers through content creation camps, training teenagers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7655],"tags":[660,2301,2046,332,182,253524],"class_list":["post-903678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-russia","tag-kremlin","tag-moscow","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-social-media","tag-young-army"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116428324503637694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}