Moscow’s efforts to delegitimize Ukrainian independence and national identity are not limited to state propaganda and political pronouncements, but also pervade the Russian school system, according to a new study of Russian and Ukrainian textbooks. Following a review of 12 textbooks from the Russian and Ukrainian national curricula published between 2015-2021 — a period covering most of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict prior to this year’s full-scale invasion — the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) concluded that Russian educational materials “are full of unsubstantiated, one-sided statements about the Ukrainian people and their government.” Consistent with Russian messaging since the outbreak of war in 2014, and especially since this February’s invasion, Russian educational messaging portrays President Vladimir Putin and Russia as “saviors of the Ukrainian people,” the report found. Ukrainian nationalism, it added, is frequently “described as being an extension of Western interests, rather than as a legitimate national sentiment” and Russian textbooks “cite Ukraine’s involvement in the Holocaust to claim that Ukrainian nationalism is inextricably linked with Nazism.” “Russia depicts Ukrainians as having a separate identity only as part of the Soviet Union,” IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff told Haaretz. “Russian students are not encouraged to think critically about Ukrainian nationalism. Ukrainian textbooks strive for objectivity but notably, fail to mention atrocities perpetrated by Ukrainians during the Holocaust, including the Babi Yar massacre of Jews and to explain Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazi regime.”
‘Saviors of the Ukrainian People’: Russian Textbooks Reduce Ukrainian Nationalism to Western Interests, Study Finds
