Schoolchildren took a picture with the flag of PMC “Wagner” in Ulan-Ude

In Ulan-Ude, students of school No. 37 took a picture with the flag of PMC “Wagner” with the inscription “Nothing personal, we were paid.” Photos from the meeting with the participants of the invasion of Ukraine appeared in the public school, attention was drawn to them by the “People of Baikal” publication.

In February, the school held a “courage lesson” called “To know, one must remember.” Representatives of the “Fighting Brotherhood” Yury Harmazhapov and Viktor Plesovskikh, as well as participants in the war in Ukraine with the callsigns Arman, Galson, Hany, Draug Lanspik, came to talk to the schoolchildren.

The real names of the participants are not mentioned, two of them came to the meeting in balaclavas, and one – on crutches. Probably, some of them served in PMC “Wagner”, but the school’s message does not say about this directly. Sibir.Realii found out that in the photo with schoolchildren there are, in particular, Viktor Plesovskikh, a knight of the Order of Courage, a member of the Battle Brotherhood (upper right corner) and Tsydyp Damdynov, who worked before the war in Buddhist monasteries as a carpenter (upper left corner).

At the meeting, students of the sixth, eighth and ninth cadet classes were shown an “informative film”, former soldiers and mercenaries answered the students’ questions. The director of the school did not respond to Sibir.Realia’s request at the time of publication.

After the so-called courage lesson, the schoolchildren took pictures with the former mercenaries of PMC “Wagner”, holding a flag with the inscription: “Nothing personal, we were paid.” Some of the former mercenaries posed, showing the “Jumbo” gesture of the thumb and little finger. Fighters of PMC “Wagner” demonstrated their ego during brutal murders in Syria, the Telegram channel “People of Baikal” writes.

• Fighters of PMC “Wagner” in Ukraine were actually mercenaries, although in Russia the provision of military services by private companies (hiring) is prohibited by law. Representatives of the Russian authorities called the PMC “Wagner assault squads” or “volunteer formations.” After the death of PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, some PMC fighters joined the Russian Armed Forces.
• The invasion of Ukraine, launched by Russia in February 2022, had a strong impact on school education in Russia. In particular, schoolchildren are drawn to sewing clothes for the military, making trench candles and camouflage nets, and in the schools and kindergartens themselves, advertisements for contract service are posted. For high school students, “Initial military training” was introduced in the OBJ course, 140 hours per hour were allocated to it (12% of the total teaching time), the course itself was renamed, and pro-Kremlin narratives about the war and the “collective West” including quotes from Russian President Vladimir Putin , included in the history course.