Kids with Drones: Russia Militarises Education at Record Pace in 2025

Since 2023, Russia has been actively promoting drone technology among children. Across dozens of regions, schools are being equipped with specialised classrooms for drone training, the Ministry of Education has issued a “UAV 101” textbook, and Kremlin-backed patriotic centres — often run by active war veterans — are teaching children war-related skills such as FPV piloting and firearms practice. An OpenMinds investigation found that in just the first 7 months of 2025, drone-related publications increased six-fold compared to all of 2022. We have also explored the key events in drone promotion among children from kindergartens to universities. 

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“Hundreds of machines, thousands of workers, and wherever you look — young people everywhere. Boys and girls work here, and they also study at vocational school here.” This quote comes from a report by the pro-Kremlin TV channel Zvezda at the end of July 2025, showcasing the Alabuga factory — a major hub for assembling Shahed drones, which are being produced at an increasing scale and used in attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, such as residential buildings, the energy grid, and even kindergartens. Some characters of the report are schoolchildren, roughly the age of 15.

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Apart from Zvezda’s report, there was another notable event in July — six kindergartens in Perm set up infrastructure for drone operations. The announcement drew significant attention from Russian Telegram channels, generating 300 posts that day — more than double the 2022 monthly average of 121. 

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With more than 2000 publications related to the popularisation of drones among children, July 2025 has hit a record since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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This corresponds to the general Kremlin’s strategy to attract children to the hottest topic of modern warfare — drones. In June, Putin instructed the Ministry of Sports to lower the minimum age for participating in drone piloting competitions. From that moment, 7-year-old children are allowed to enter such tournaments.

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Overall, we detected 30 000 posts across 4 000 channels related to the promotion of drones among children and youth through school curriculum or events such as workshops, competitions, and hackathons. During the 7 months of 2025, there were 8600 posts — a six-fold increase compared to the whole of 2022. Also, this is 28% more than the same period in 2024. Additionally, posts created in 2025 constitute more than a quarter of all content. Examples of the relevant publications include the following:

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• Novosibirsk State University and the company "Smart Drones" are planning to create a digital platform for controlling a swarm of UAVs. 
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• A student of the Lyceum No. 14 is the winner of the Republican drone competition. The competition was held at the Laishevsky Technical and Economic College of the Republic of Tatarstan.
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• On September 6, Chelyabinsk Region Governor Alexey Teksler visited a festival dedicated to the start of the school year. The head of the region mentioned the creation of a club related to drone control. 

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“The boys need a man's hand”
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In May 2025, the Russian education system introduced a textbook on UAVs for 8-9 grades in school. It contains general information on the history of drone development and how they are manufactured. Also, there is a chapter called “Foundations of FPV flights” with guides on how to control the FPV drones, currently one of the main types of weapons on the frontline. 
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Overall, publications about education occupy the largest part of the content — 33%. Apart from news about the textbook, this section includes content about practical courses on drone piloting and manufacturing within state and private schools. Russia invests in drone education from preschool level to university degrees, with one example being University 2035, which offers a program for future drone pilots within a “Cadres for UAVs” federal program.

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To prepare future drone operators, Russian educational facilities need relevant infrastructure. Infrastructure development is highlighted within 14% of the content. Back in January 2024, the Ministry of Education announced that schools and colleges in 30 pilot regions would be equipped with the necessary gear to conduct drone training. At the beginning of the following educational year, schools throughout these regions boasted of new “specialised cabinets,” ranging from those in the Ukraine-bordering Belgorod region to Belogorsk in the Amur region — a town more than 8000 kilometers away from Ukraine.

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Apart from theoretical fundamentals and test flights within schools, state-sponsored competitions are an important part of improving piloting skills. Tournaments are the second vital element of drone popularisation among children, making up more than 20% of the content. Sergey Kravstov, the Minister of Education of Russia, acknowledged that competition among children is a crucial element for drone development, as school olympiads are on the agenda for the 2040 Strategy of education development. Drone racing competitions among kids have become regular events in recent years, with hundreds of publications dedicated to them each month. 

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Adding to systemic education, one-time events such as workshops and lectures in schools and for broader audiences constitute 14% of the content. They are often positioned as an opportunity for career development — for instance, Moscow Aviation Institute conducted lectures on drones for potential applicants. For workshops, organisations attract Russian military personnel as well. During the summer camp Iskra in July, war veteran Ivan Bondiukov conducted a workshop for children who had an opportunity to pilot drones and try on military equipment. 

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Bondiukov, who, according to the Znanie portal, took part in battles for Hostomel, Izyum, and Popasna, is currently demobilised. However, he is active in popularising drones among children within his Vershyna centre of patriotic education. Talking about children who lost their fathers during the war against Ukraine, Bondiukov shares his plans in an interview: “The boys need a man's hand, education, and I have an idea to open a kind of camp or military-patriotic club exclusively for them.”

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Camps and patriotic upbringing programs, although being a relatively small category (4%), constitute an important group of publications since the system of ideological indoctrination works not only in state schools but also in the spare time during summer holidays. The camps have been more widely represented since 2023 — that year,  there were 112 relevant publications during the summer, while two summer months of 2025 generated 214 messages. They mostly have similar tones with smiling children getting drone piloting skills and other war-relevant knowledge, such as tactical medicine or shooting practice. Other publications about summer camps mention kids from the occupied territories of Ukraine. For example, students from Mariupol school went to a camp near Saint-Petersburg and studied how to pilot drones. 

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Children from the Occupied Territories

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There have been 963 publications mentioning the occupied regions of Ukraine. Summer camps of 2023 are among the starting points for drone popularisation among children — in August that year, regional media in the Republic of Kalmykia reported that 130 kids from the Ukrainian Luhansk region took part in the military-patriotic game Zarnitsa. 

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Russia builds educational infrastructure in the newly-occupied territories as well. In a coastal town of Heniches'k (Kherson region), the occupational authorities established UAV laboratories in the local technical university. In Berdiansk (Zaporizhzhia region), they opened a technical park featuring drone laboratories for teachers’ professional development.

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Adding to the infrastructure, Moscow works on indoctrinating the children of Ukrainians who were forcefully mobilised to fight for the Russian army. In November 2024, they were taken to a camp called Pride of the Nation with explicitly military-related themes and activities — firearms practice, drone piloting, and tactical medicine. May 2025 became the peak month containing mentions of occupied territories, with 81 publications about a broad variety of activities — a UAV workshop from Russian military personnel for Kherson region’s pupils; a drone racing competition in Simferopol, and training Donbas’ orphans to pilot. 

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Conclusion

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Back in 2023, Putin announced plans to educate 1 million UAV professionals by 2030, adding that Russia might need even more specialists as the sphere is “developing rapidly.” On September 1, 2025, Russian pupils will go to schools to start the new educational year. While the previous year’s novelty was specialised cabinets to practice drone piloting, this year brings a dedicated textbook on UAVs. In 2026, the Ministry of Education plans to launch a drone-related federal olympiad for schoolchildren.

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Although these developments are presented as part of technological progress, they are deeply intertwined with the militarisation of the school curriculum. The popularisation of UAV knowledge among children not only normalises military technology in everyday education but also lays the foundations for a generation trained in skills directly applicable to warfare. 

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Even amid discussions of a potential peace settlement, the long-term effect may be the creation of a trained pool of young drone operators who could be deployed in military actions against Ukraine or other states. A militarised and heavily ideological education curriculum is common among authoritarian regimes. Such programmes will most likely trap the next generation in a life shaped by military themes, making war feel like a natural part of society.

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Methodology

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We collected data from more than 2 million Telegram channels. After keyword filtering, we got 50 thousand publications from 6062 unique channels. Keywords included two groups: one related to children (“school,” “college,” “students,” “kids,” etc.), and the other related to drones (“UAV,” “drone,” etc.). The stopword list included words related to the war with Ukraine to filter out irrelevant publications, such as news about drones flying by schools or casualties among children after aerial attacks. 

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Then, we used a large language model (gpt-4o-mini) to additionally filter publications mentioning drone popularisation. After the filtering, we got the final dataset with 30 037 publications. Additionally, we mapped types of popularising events, with the final list featuring the following categories: 

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• Education: integration of drone-related subjects, textbooks, and practical training into school curricula to familiarise children with UAV technology. 
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• Competitions: contests where children demonstrate drone piloting and engineering skills, often framed as “olympiads” or talent challenges.
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• Infrastructure: establishment of specialised classrooms, training centres, and practice zones equipped for drone assembly and flight simulations.
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• Workshops & Lectures: short-term, often one-time learning sessions or expert talks introducing children to drone technology.
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• Exhibitions: public showcases of drones and related technology, often aimed at school-age participants.
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• Summer Camps: seasonal programmes combining recreation with UAV training and competitions.
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• Grants: financial support or scholarships for young inventors to develop drone-related projects.
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• Internships: opportunities for teenagers and young adults to gain practical UAV experience in research institutions, technology companies, or defence-linked enterprises, often through agreements between educational facilities and drone manufacturers.
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• Other: not falling under the mentioned categories.
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Overall, publications in the final dataset were distributed among 4423 unique channels, with the top 100 occupying 22% of the content. We manually labeled them and concluded that the key disseminators of the content, accounting for more than half of the top, are regional news outlets (24 channels), pages dedicated to the UAV industry (news, operators’ schools – 23 channels), and educational channels (university pages, patriotic summer camps – 15 channels).