A new report from the Centre for Information Resilience reveals how Kremlin and pro-Kremlin proxies are using children to spread nationalist disinformation.
The report, by Belén Carrasco Rodríguez, reveals how children are weaponised to increase support for the war through Soviet-era propaganda techniques and digital-age tactics.
CIR’s Co-Founder & Executive Director, Ross Burley, said:
“Our latest report shows how the Kremlin is not only weaponising children to build and maintain support for its invasion; it is indoctrinating future generations in Russia and occupied areas. The Russian government is demonstrating a flagrant disregard for international standards on the rights of children. It seems there are no lengths to which Putin and his cronies will not go in order to manipulate the information environment. That includes using children.”
The report analyses how Russia is using underage Russians and Ukrainians to deflect responsibility for the invasion, romanticise the war by glorifying Russian soldiers, and indoctrinate children in occupied areas.
It discusses three key strategies used by the Kremlin: top-down influence campaigns, sociocognitive hacking, and patriotic education.
Our research examines data collected and analysed between the 27th of February and the 7th of July through a combination of open-source techniques.
Evidence gathered includes over two hundred pictures, videos, news articles, blog and social media posts, poems, drawings, and letters collected from Kremlin-official media, pro-Kremlin websites, and Telegram, YouTube, and Twitter accounts.