‍We can never be too aware of Russia’s propaganda (Russian lies).

The more we, American citizens and hopefully official Washington, know about Russia’s brainwashing of its own children and abducted Ukrainian children, and about Russia’s pervasive lies spread across the globe, the better we should understand that Russia is our enemy and must be treated as such.

The more we know about Russian lies in the context of its barbarism in Ukraine, there can be no avoiding the reality that Russia is a determined enemy seeking to destroy allies and the U.S., and not a land of capitalist business opportunities.

Below, I set out two items that should be read.

First, an article by Bohdan Vitvitsky published in The Hill describes what generations of Russian students are being taught.

Second, NEWSGUARD’s report on Russia’s 28 false claims targeting Ukraine and Ukrainians during the Winter Olympics.

We must stay current on the Kremlin’s ever-present efforts to form opinion and replace truth with lies that benefit Russia’s aggressive interests.

THE HILL

Putin’s classroom propaganda includes goose steps and grenades

by Bohdan Vitvitsky, opinion contributor - 02/11/26 11:30 AM ET

One of this year’s Oscar nominees for documentary filmmaking, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” provides a unique window into the mindset that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has generated and aggressively seeks to disseminate. It shows how the war against Ukraine is being presented to and digested by ordinary, small-town Russians.

The film was made by a Russian schoolteacher named Pavel Talankin working at the main school in Karabash, an industrial town of some 10,000 nestled in the Ural mountains.

The project started out as a mandated recording on how the school was complying with the new wartime program and curricular requirements imposed by Moscow, which turned into daily mandates for “patriotic” lessons about the army, the war and the need to mobilize society and keep it united. But after a while, Talankin realized that what he was recording was an important reveal of what Russia was doing to itself — not to mention to Ukraine — and he took his footage to the West.

The film covers the period between the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and the summer of 2024. It includes clips of statements by Putin and other public officials on state-owned and controlled Russian television.

Putin announces on Feb. 24, 2022 that he has decided to initiate a “special military operation” out of “friendship and mutual aid” to the Donetsk and Luhansk “Peoples Republics.” Almost immediately thereafter, Moscow informs the school in Karabash that it must adopt changes to its daily schedule involving the content of classroom lessons, songs to be sung, the adoption of military drill marching and so on.

Each school day must begin with a military style flag presentation by the students, whose school appears to include primary and middle school grades. Children in the lower grades are trained to goose step in a rectangle around the main hallway, and they have to learn to memorize war poems in order “to help the army.”

Teachers must read prepared scripts to their students about Crimea wanting to join Russia and about how the special military operation is to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, where, purportedly, decisions are made by “radicals, nationalists and neo-Nazis.” Some teachers struggle to pronounce the Russian words for “demilitarize” and “denazify,” and videos of their lessons must therefore be re-recorded.

Public statements on state-owned television about the “special military operation” include: “We shouldn’t kill them out of hate. We must kill them out of love, love for our children”; “This operation is about revenge — we strike precisely for revenge;” and “This is a manifestation of our hate, a totally holy hate.”

A general bedecked with medals from his chest to his knees proclaims that “If we need to turn Kyiv into ruins and put our flag on top of these ruins, then this must be done.” And a local Russian Orthodox priest at Karabash’s commemoration of the “Great Patriotic War” (World War II) intones to the students gathered there, “You, young people, will have to carry the banner of absolute victory over evil.”

On the centennial of the founding of Lenin’s Young Pioneers, Putin unveils the creation of a new children’s patriotic Russian movement that he will chair personally. Three members of the mercenary Wagner Group are sent to Karabash to make a presentation to students involving land mines, rifles and bullet-proof vests, and they later sponsor a grenade throwing contest for the younger children.  

One teacher whose lessons do not need to be re-recorded is the history teacher, Pavel Abdulmanov. He presents the government’s propaganda for the students with enthusiasm, sprinkling his lectures with tidbits of nonsense about how gas is so expensive in France and the rest of Europe that the French will soon have to revert to riding horses. He tells them that the “tiny island” of England killed its own people during World War II, that Russia “could destroy Ukraine in a couple of days,” and there are demonstrations in the U.S. in support of Russia.  

During an interview with Talankin, Abdulmanov is asked which figures in Russian history he most admires, and he replies with Lavrentiy Beria, Viktor Abakumov and Pavel Sudoplatov, all high officials in Stalin’s secret police. The first two had the blood of multitudes on their hands. Sudoplatov was more specialized: He was Stalin’s special assassin for overseas political murders.

The film then records a citywide ceremony celebrating the school’s favorite teacher, to give him the keys to a new luxury apartment in the middle of town. The teacher chosen is none other than Abdulmanov.

Talankin, the quiet and unassuming teacher turned filmmaker, is its self-titled “Mr. Nobody.” His movie, now available on several streaming services, is an intentional reveal about today’s Russia, but it may also reveal that our administration’s approach to Russia’s war against Ukraine is, to put it diplomatically, uninformed.  

That war is not in any sense analogous to disputes about real estate or development. The movie also exposes that earlier claims that the war had something to do with NATO enlargement were altogether delusional.

Bohdan Vitvitsky is a retired federal prosecutor and a former U.S. diplomat.

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NEWSGUARD

February 12, 2026

In Case You Missed It … Russia’s Olympian Disinformation Game

Reality Check yesterday reported exclusively that a Russian influence operation has unleashed an avalanche of false claims targeting Ukraine and Ukrainians during the Winter Olympics in Italy, spreading fabricated news reports aimed at disparaging Ukrainian athletes, visitors, and workers as criminals, cheaters, and cowardly defectors.

NewsGuard identified 28 videos and images mimicking genuine news outlets and government agencies that were released between Jan. 30, 2026, and Feb. 10, 2026, advancing claims including that Ukrainian catering staff at the Olympics were spitting in food, that the World Anti-Doping Association has “made doping tests easier” for Ukrainian Olympic athletes, and that rapper Snoop Dogg refused to have his photo taken with the Ukrainian delegation due to the supposed Nazism in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

As a follow up, NewsGuard tested how 11 leading AI chatbots performed when prompted with statements containing the false claims. NewsGuard found that the three false narratives that tripped up the AI tools the most were claims that Italy agreed to allow 120 Ukrainian Security Services personnel to attend the Games, that Mossad warned Israeli citizens in Italy to watch out for radical nationalist Ukrainians, and that a Ukrainian performance artist smeared his own fecal matter on the walls of an airplane lavatory on a flight to Milan.

The 28 false claims are:

• Protestors in Milan clashed with local police after calling for Ukraine to be excluded from the Olympics
• Italy agreed to let 120 Ukrainian Security Services personnel attend the games
• The World Anti-Doping Agency has eased its testing on Ukrainian athletes
• A Ukrainian translator at the Olympics has become the 52nd translator to defect
• Ukrainian athletes have been housed away from other delegations after aggressive behavior at Paris 2024
• Ahead of the Olympics, Ukrainian hackers are creating Booking.com copycat sites to scam Europeans looking for accommodations at the Games
• A cover of the U.S. satirical magazine Humor Times shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stealing the Olympic medals
• A video shows two Ukrainians robbing a jewelry store in Milan ahead of the Games
• Ukrainian caterers at the Olympics are spitting in the food to protest the Games
• Security at the Olympic Games will be significantly tightened due to the participation of Ukrainian athletes
• There have been multiple arrests of Ukrainians who were planning acts of violence at the Olympics
• Rapper Snoop Dogg refused to take a photo with the Ukrainian Olympic team in Milan owing to Nazism in the Ukrainian Armed Forces
• French authorities are currently searching for a fugitive Ukrainian athlete
• An image shows anti-Zelensky graffiti in Milan, at the assembly point for the Ukrainian team
• Ukrainian feminist activists have been arrested for damaging Rome’s Colosseum in protest against the Olympics
• Mossad warns Israeli citizens in Italy to watch out for radical nationalist Ukrainians
• Visitors to the Olympics should be wary of falsified QR codes from Ukrainian fraudsters
• Europeans are outraged as Ukrainians book up 50% of accommodation near Olympic venues
• Ukrainians are selling counterfeit Olympic tickets
• A Ukrainian performance artist smeared his own fecal matter on the walls of a European plane toilet in protest against the Olympics
• Ukrainian refugees across Europe are protesting outside Italian embassies, demanding the Olympics be canceled
• Italy refused to let Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky address the Olympic Opening Ceremony
• Ukrainian Security Services personnel confiscated the passports of family members of male Ukrainian athletes to prevent defections
• Italy did not grant Ukraine permission to bring 120 Security Services of Ukraine personnel to the Olympics
• The granddaughter of a Ukrainian oligarch hired out all the suites in three Italian luxury hotels near Olympic venues
• Italian police stepped up surveillance of Ukrainians living in Italy before the Olympics
• The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the Italian government for allowing Russian fans to attend the Olympic Games

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ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network

This introduction is Mr. McConnell’s and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).

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