When Ilya Rusinov returned to the Russian workforce after rehabilitating the vertebrae of the victim in the War of Ukraine, his first employment was teaching at school.
But he also launched a secondary project, a patriotic club that he called the Invention or “Squad”, which provides military training for various age groups, including teenagers. After fighting first, he found growing demand for his training sessions, including instructors in similar patriotic organizations. Mr. Rusinov eventually left his teaching work to help run the full -time.
Almost three years after the mortar shell, she threw a hole in her back, Mr. Rusinov, who fought as part of Wagner The Mercenary Group is one of the growing group of veterans claiming that Russian officials are remunerated by a strengthened position in society – they speak at public events, school lectures and local intelligence sites.
It is part of the very public efforts of the Kremlin to elevate veterans to leading positions, offer business opportunities and some forgiveness to loans, all while stretching society to accept and appreciate them.
The veterans will address school groups today As well as the age of kindergartens And to provide basic weapons training to students, which has been a compulsory part of every curriculum starting in the eighth grade since September. Billboards proclaiming the heroism of soldiers are lined with the main roads and the Kremlin has shown that he names veterans for top jobs.
The daily daily TV show on the state -owned Rossiya 1 called “Ors” contains brass veterans. Some give the living performances of front ballads, others tell about their “heroism” on the front.
Sure, re -entry of veterans into the company can be rocky. The persistent stigma lasts. Poorly injured or visibly traumatized soldiers are rare in public. Psychological struggles are left undiscusing and lack of mental health support. Some of the programs created for veterans are shades and do not increase veterans of the line and file, they say critics, while the Ukrainians claimed that some of those who were praised were involved in war crimes.
Analysts say Moscow is trying to learn from the experience of Afghan and Chechen wars when veterans traumatized with access to weapons returned to a society that questioned why they fought and looked at them like killer.
Mr. Rusinov heard about those days since his father, who fought in Afghanistan for the Soviet army. At that time, the Kremlin tried to minimize society’s awareness of how many soldiers of the country deployed, and how many of them died – he sent dead homes in a zinc coffin.
“My father told me they had returned, no one really needed them, and they were generally pushed aside and watched skepticism,” he said that soldiers were returning from Afghanistan. “You went and fought, you know a lot of things, but no one needs you.”
“Now the situation is completely different,” said Mr. Rusinov.
Download from Afghanistan is still considered embarrassment for Moscow. But this time has a Kremlin tried to burn Picture of veterans in public life.
One of the most trumpeted components of its plan is the postgraduate program “Time of Heroes”, which aims to support the generation of war leaders.
The Kremlin charged the time to the heroes as a way to remodel the elites of the country – reduced the presence of oligarchic entrepreneurs and increased patriotic veterans. The program, which mixes the management and management of courses for veterans with the possibility to stand in administrative positions, attracted more than 44,000 candidates for its first 83 seats. Accepts the second round of applicants.
“The elite is those who serve Russia, not those who lined their pockets at the age of 90,” said President Vladimir V. Putin, when he announced the creation of the program last February. “In the future, Russia can be handed over and entrusted to people like contemporary heroes” wars in Ukraine.
Mr. Putin announced his candidacy for the fifth term as president of VA carefully choreographic public appearance in which the veteran asked him to “finish what he started”. Veteran, Artem Zhoga, originally from the Ukrainian region Donbas, later joined the heroes in his opening class.
Members of Time of Heroes soon found themselves on the ascending career track. Mr. Zhoga became a presidential ambassador in the Urals district and in October he was invited to join the Security Council.
Another participant at the time of heroes, Yevgeny Pervyshov, former mayor of the southern city of Krasnodar, who joined the fight in Ukraine in 2022, was appointed temporary governor of the Tambov region. One former member got the role in December counseling Rosatom management, state nuclear corporations. Another was the Vice -Chairman of the Committee on the Law and Order in St. Petersburg.
“As Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin said, we create a new elite of people who have shown that they can give everything for their homeland and the state, including their lives,” said Oleg V. Panchurin, a career officer who leads the association. Veterans of special military operations (euphemism of the Kremlin for war).
After Mr. Panchurin was injured on his leg by the Ukrainian drone encouraged to run in the primary ruling parties, united Russia. The party assigned veterans from Ukraine 25 additional percentage points At the top of the voices they received to put their feet.
Mr. Panchurin returned to the front and did not proceed in the elections. However, he returned to Moscow, recently passed the entrance examination for the second class of heroes and his goal is to join the Russian Lower Chamber of Parliament.
However, independent observers say that the time of heroes largely recycle people with resources and do not benefit the lower rank of society, including many veterans, by providing access to good administrative jobs.
“We still don’t see any meetings in really high positions,” said Andrea Pertsev, a journalist with an exiled media output of Meduza, which covers the Russian presidential administration. “It’s a tool.”
Mr. Pertsev noted that the region in which Mr. Pervyshov was, had a temporary population governor and a budget smaller than the city where he was mayor. And the time of the heroes of graduates appointed to the Russian upper house of Parliament in September, Aleksey Kondratev, has already served in the body on behalf of another area from 2015 to 2020.
In addition, Mr Pertsev said that the applicants for the heroes were required with rare exceptions to have a college title.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, other independent outlets operating in exile, studied biography of 80 out of 83 participants in the first time of Kohorta Heroes, and found that almost 80 percent were military staff in career, s Only three mobilized soldiers. At least three participants were also appointed Ukrainian security services in war crimes.
This did not prevent the program from performing hard to perform in Kremlin’s news that celebrates war efforts. Supervision of the powerful representative of the chief of Staff Sergei V. Kiriyenka Mr. Putin, the time of the heroes was strongly supported by the Kremlin financing and is regularly mentioned in the media. Mr. Putin spoke about it last month, including during a visit to the rehabilitation center, when he committed himself to replicate the time of heroes on regional level.
Every appointment for the heroes graduates receives wide coverage in state and local media. Some of the men will play a role to form the youngest generation of the Russian, just as Mr. Rusinov hopes.
For example, at the end of last month was one of Heroes Alumnus one of the passage of Heroes Alumnus The named head of yunarmieor youth army, militarized return to young pioneers of the Soviet era; has More than one million participantsAccording to the TASS state press agency.
Mr. Rusinov hopes to follow. Since his return from the war he lectured at schools and universities in the Samara region and is a training instructor in military-Pait education.
In November, he sat the entrance exam for heroes and said he would dream of one day to become the director of what he called the “military version of Hogwarts”.
