Russians fully replace Ukrainian school books in the Zaporizhzhia TOT

Russian officials report having purchased over 181,000 Russian textbooks for schoolchildren in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia oblast, which allegedly fully met the textbook needs in the area, writes the Russian propaganda Telegram channel "Za!TV. Zaporizhzhia Oblast News".

According to the propagandists, the Russians spent 126 million rubles (nearly 38 million UAH – Author) and “supplied five trucks with textbooks” to Zaporizhzhia oblast.

Tetyana Dubynska, collaborator, acting Minister of Education of the Russian-installed authorities of Zaporizhzhia oblast, told the propaganda channel Za!TV that the textbooks were printed specifically for use in Zaporizhzhia oblast and had not been in use before. These textbooks are to be distributed to the seized libraries in Zaporizhzhia oblast. According to her, they have already purchased 46,000 Russian textbooks.

Tetyana Dubynska, acting Minister of Education of the Russian-installed authorities of Zaporizhzhia oblast. Photo by Za!TV on Telegram

The grades 5–7 textbook “Our Local History (Zaporizhzhia Region)” by Viktor Gnedashev, a Melitopol collaborator, historian, teacher at the Radyvonivka school No. 28, was to be introduced for schoolchildren in Zaporizhzhia oblast starting September 2024.

Za!TV reports that “the textbook has been adapted for history lessons in the multimedia history park "Russia is My History" and is very relevant in times of shaping a new, objective and rigorous content for history education".

According to the Ukrainian news outlet RIA Pivden, local historian, director of the Yakymov Museum of Local Lore, Viktor Gnedashev (aged 64) started collaborating with the occupiers back in 2022. He gives the propagandistic “Lessons in Courage” for schoolchildren.

Viktor Gnedashev. Photo by RIA Pivden

Other books and textbooks distributed by the Russians in the Zaporizhzhia TOT

In early September 2024, the Russians presented the propagandistic textbook “Family Values” for Ukrainian school children in Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast). The textbook-magazine “Family Values” is intended for schools and universities in the occupied parts of Ukraine – the Donbas, Luhansk oblast, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblast.

The Russians have also been distributing textbooks on “modern history” in schools in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine since 2023. Ukrainian children in grades 10–11 in the TOT are taught by the textbook “History of Russia” by the Minister of Culture of Russia, Vladimir Medinsky. It contains a section on the “SMO” (full-scale war on Ukraine. – Author), “Ukrainian neo-Nazism”, “the ultranationalist state of Ukraine” and the dead Russian soldiers.

Medinsky wrote and published history textbooks for 6th grade “History of the Middle Ages” and “History of Russia 9th – early 14th centuries,” where the name “Kyiv Rus” was replaced with “the state of Rus.” Ukrainian textbooks and books in the TOT are being systematically destroyed. For instance, Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian official, propagandist, and representative of the Russian authorities in the occupied part of Zaporizhia oblast, said that he personally burned Ukrainian books from school libraries in the occupied part of Zaporizhia oblast.