31.03.2026. Putin facing another war closer to home
Years of exposure to militarisation in Russia’s schools may be leading to a rise in stabbings, arson and shootings by teenagers
On a chilly day in early February, a 14-year-old girl quietly excused herself from a classroom in Krasnoyarsk, in eastern Russia. Minutes later, she returned with a rag soaked in accelerant burning in her hand.
She sprinted into a nearby algebra lesson, splashed the remaining fuel across the desks, and hurled the flaming weapon. As panic erupted, she drew a hammer and began striking at classmates scrambling for the door.
According to local media reports, one victim was left with burns across half of his body. Four other children suffered moderate burns and traumatic brain injuries. One teacher was treated for smoke inhalation.
For more than four years since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, children from nursery age have grown up amid an industrial-scale campaign of militarisation.
They have marched drills in school corridors, learned to assemble drones and rifles, held grenade-throwing contests and taken lessons from war-bloodied mercenaries who fought in Ukraine.
And it is not just in the classroom. Indoctrination has spanned youth groups such as the Yunarmiya, state-run media, popular culture and even gaming and toys – the latter is known to scholars as “militainment”.
Experts fear this militarisation of school has led to the increase in attacks by children.
The day before the girls’ firebomb attack, another 14-year-old in the same region had stabbed a peer and a teacher.
On that same day in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, a Year 10 pupil opened fire with an airsoft gun, hitting a teacher and three classmates.
Four days later, a 15-year-old in Ufa stormed a student dormitory with a knife, stabbing seven people while shouting nationalist slogans and smearing a swastika on the wall in blood, according to local Telegram channels.
A few days later, a 17-year-old stole his grandfather’s gun and shot three people at a technical college in Krasnodar Krai, killing a security guard.
A week later, a 13-year-old stabbed a classmate in the neck and torso after a disagreement.
On Thursday, a 15-year-old pupil brought a crossbow, flare gun and pepper spray to school, shot a teacher and a female classmate, then jumped out of a window.
As public fears mount, the Kremlin has begun to take notice. At the start of this month, Vladimir Putin expressed “particular concern” about the subject in a board meeting of Russia’s internal ministry.
Juvenile crime increased last year “for the first time in a long time”, the Russian president noted, drawing attention in particular to “cases of aggressive behaviour by teenagers in schools, colleges and public places”.
The issue threatens to spiral into a domestic crisis. Cases of juvenile crime increased by 18 per cent in 2025. According to Putin, “serious and especially serious” crimes made up around 40 per cent of this figure.
There were at least seven school attacks in Russia in the first two months of 2026, compared with 15 in 2025. Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the Russian interior minister, said Russian police had prevented a further 21 school attacks since the beginning of the year.
Half of the 117 recorded violent incidents at Russian schools since 2000 have occurred in the past five years, according to The Moscow Times.
Teachers have been instructed to check students’ phones and backpacks and pay attention to “suspicious” factors such as “strange clothing”, “shaved heads”, “combat boots” and interest in social studies and history, according to the independent Russian outlet Verstka.
Russia’s top officials have been quick to offer their diagnoses. Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma chairman and an erstwhile Putin aide, singled out video games for their focus on “crimes, gender transition, drug use and LGBT issues”.
Nina Ostanina, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on family affairs, blamed social media for the “epidemic of infernal violence in Russian schools”.
But experts speaking to The Telegraph pointed to the militarisation of school for young children since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to Dr Ian Garner, a professor of totalitarian studies at the Pilecki Institute and the author of Z Generation, a book about youth fascism in Russia, the “particularly violent culture in schools” could be spilling over into children’s behaviours.
“They’re learning about war. They’re exposed to veterans talking about killing and violence at the front in Ukraine. They may be missing fathers. As much as we think that many Russians are sheltered from the war, the war is coming home to them,” he told The Telegraph.
This transformation of education into a vehicle for future mobilisation was the subject of this year’s Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin, which follows a horrified teacher documenting his students’ immersion in ultranationalist propaganda amid a state overhaul of education.
In archival footage featured in the film, Putin announced on state television: “Commanders don’t win wars. Teachers win wars.”
Dr Jenny Mathers, a lecturer at Aberystwyth University and an expert in youth militarisation in Russia, noted that Putin-approved presidential grants had ensured patriotic education extends to every corner of the country, from major cities to far-flung villages.
“This focus on the youth tells us a lot about what Putin’s regime intends for the future,” she told The Telegraph. “They are settling themselves in for a long, drawn-out period of violent confrontation with other states. They need the young people to be on side.”
Such acts of reflexive violence against perceived outsiders and adversaries dovetail with state narratives of an external threat and imply elements of military messaging are being internalised, churning out future soldiers for the Kremlin’s forever war.
The convergence has already been made visible. The neo-Nazi paramilitary Rusich group, which fights for Russia, posted images in support of a 15-year-old white supremacist who stabbed a 10-year-old Tajik child to death in a Moscow school in December.
Dr Mathers says her research suggests the regime is “very worried” that its programme of indoctrination is not having an effect, but that the crisis could be “a sign that some part of this message is getting through”.
“There’s a message that the use of violence is sanctioned. And especially if it’s against people identified as the ‘other’, because you’re protecting your society and they don’t belong,” she said.
Dr Garner suggested that the regime may use the crisis to force yet more militarisation on young people.
“The Putin government doesn’t often admit that things are getting worse in the country,” he said. “Of course, the answer will be, the people to fix it are the regime. It will force more militarisation, more patriotic education, more lessons about how important it is to be a ‘good Russian’.
