Crimean schoolchildren made to kneel in memory of Putin's imagined "genocide of the Soviet people"

Russians make Crimean children kneel / Source: Agentstvo on Telegram

Children in the schools of occupied Crimea were lined up in the shape of a five-pointed star and made to kneel on April 18, writes the Russian Telegram channel "Agentstvo".

In this way, schools in Russian and the occupied territories opened a class dedicated to a memorial day invented in 2021 – the "Day of United Action" commemorating the "genocide of the Soviet people" supposedly committed during the Great Patriotic War (as the Second World War war is called in Russia. – Ed.).

The media outlet found over 300 photo reports from this campaign in the schools' community pages on Vkontakte.

"At the Usolye-Sibirskoye school No. 18 (Irkutsk region), even first-graders were made to kneel. At the Yekaterininskoye school (Omsk region), the girls were placed in the shape of a star on the gym floor. At the Bellyk school (Krasnoyarsk region), the children lined up in a letter Z," the editors note.

The campaign was organized by the pro-government "Social Technologies and Communications Agency" and the "Russian Search Movement".

"Agentstvo" remarks that there were no such photo reports from schools last year.

They note that the "Day of United Action" is part of the Russian state's campaign to promote a narrative about a "genocide of the Soviet people". This "genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union" was first mentioned by the Russian President Vladimir Putin in July 2020. As soon as half a year later, the courts started to recognize mass murders committed during the Second World War as part of the supposed genocide. In October 2022, the court recognized the blockade of Leningrad as "genocide of the Soviet people."