New Russian School Textbook Teaches Students How to Operate Drones - (May 2025)

A Russian drone manufacturer with ties to President Vladimir Putin’s daughter has published the country’s first school textbook on operating drones, the company announced … The new textbook is part of Russia’s national initiative to train 1 million drone operators at more than 500 schools and 30 universities by 2030 …

"We must not say it’s for the war”: Hundreds of thousands of Russian schoolkids are building drones that kill Ukrainians - (July 2025)

In July 2022, a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, a ceremony in occupied Sevastopol marked the launch of the “Berloga” program (literally “Bear’s Den”), a “cyber-physical gaming platform” for school students. The organizers pledged to return Russia “to the top tier of global tech leaders,” pinning their hopes primarily on schoolchildren … Officially, Berloga has no connection to the war in Ukraine, even if the legend dreamed up for the “gaming platform” was less than subtle … The Berloga project is part of an ecosystem created by Russia’s Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), which also encompasses the NTI network of science and technology clubs and the Archipelago intensive training course. The latter explicitly mentions testing military drones in its curriculum.