They also allegedly have a big request for literature in Russian. This is reported by Russian media on anonymous telegram channels. This is not true.

In fact, the occupiers are destroying Ukrainian textbooks and teaching methodology books, books on the history of Ukraine, books by Ukrainian writers, and the Ukrainian language is being made an optional subject in schools. Even fairy tales and illustrated children’s books with almost no text were destroyed. As the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center writes, the Russians decided on their own about the language of instruction in schools.

Since May, the occupiers in the Kharkiv region have emphasized that education in schools will be according to Russian programs and Russian standards. For this, delegations of teachers from the occupied territories of the Kharkiv region traveled to Russia for the so-called retraining. At the end of August, propagandists reported that the United Russia party set the task of developing a plan for the phased Russification of schools and kindergartens in the temporarily occupied Vovchansk,Kharkiv region. In particular, the subject “History of Ukraine” will be replaced by “History of the Russian Federation”. Classes taught in Ukrainian will be replaced by “Russian-speaking” classes. Ukrainian literature will be taught exclusively in Russian and there will be a separate “Russian fiction (Russian literature)”. All entries in students’ registers and diaries will be made in Russian.

In August, Putin instructed the Russian government to pay 10,000 rubles at the same time to one of the parents of schoolchildren in the occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions, provided that the child starts studying according to Russian programs by September 15.