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This article examines the role of Russian officials, servicemen, veterans, and paramilitary organisations in coordinating patriotic education programmes in the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples’ Republics (DNR/LNR) since 2014. Three complementary objectives underpin these programmes: first, indoctrinating youth to a worldview which promotes cultural assimilation into Russian society and denigrates Ukrainian statehood and identity; second, shoring up de facto authorities’ legitimacy by glorifying the DNR/LNR as fully-fledged states requiring protection from Ukraine and destined to be ‘reunited’ with Russia; third, building a training and recruitment mechanism to fill the ranks of ‘republican’ but also Russian military and security structures.
Jaroslava Barbieri (Mon,) studied this question.