In the fall of 2024, videos with booklets teaching children how to behave correctly with military personnel circulated on social networks. We have verified the authenticity of these videos.
On one of video a certain Natalia Bastrikova, introduced as the Acting Minister of Education and Science of the Kursk Region, talks about the “A Soldier Will Not Hurt a Child” campaign, which is starting with the new school year. The goal of the latter, allegedly, is to teach the younger generation the rules of communication with Russian participants in the war with Ukraine “in order to avoid conflict and tragic situations.” For example, children are advised to smile at military personnel, talk about hobbies or the weather, but not shout, or bring up politics or intimate topics. The booklet pays special attention to clothing: for example, when meeting with a military man, boys are not recommended to have dyed hair, wear short shorts and bright clothes, and girls are not recommended to wear skirts. Similar videos appeared with the participation of officials Bryansk, Saratovskaya, Belgorod, Rostov and Voronezh regions.
In another video, a woman behind the scenes talks about how her daughter received the same booklet at school. In some publications, from the subtitles of this video, you can find out that this is happening in Perm.
All these videos, as well as pictures of the booklet pages, were widely distributed on social networks - Facebook, X (there were a few especially popular tweets), TikTok And Telegram.
The first thing that catches your eye when watching videos of Russian officials is the incomplete correspondence between the articulation of their faces and the spoken words. In addition, the dentition of, for example, Natalia Bastrikova looks different in different frames.
On September 12, shortly after the video began circulating, its contents refuted in the official Telegram channel of the government of the Kursk region. They stated that the real August incident was taken as a basis. video clip with Natalia Bastrikova, dedicated to the organization of distance learning in schools.
Subsequently, similar denials followed from Voronezh (here is the original video of the regional Minister of Education Natalia Salogubova), Bryansk, Belgorodskaya, Rostov And Saratovskaya regions. Judging by all the circumstances, the videos were created using neural networks based on videos of real speeches by regional officials. He spoke about some such cases on September 13 TASS. Some videos about the booklet (in particular, with Salogubova) appeared on the Internet after this date.
The booklets themselves deserve special attention. The design uses a font that is quite uncharacteristic for Russian-language typography.
This is the so-called Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet, or Bulgarian. It is characteristic of the Bulgarian school of type design and is intended to emphasize the identity of the local script. It’s very strange to see it in official Russian booklets.
At the bottom of the booklets it is indicated that the action is being carried out with the support of the United Russia party, the Russian Orthodox Church and the veterans organization “Combat Brotherhood” (its contacts also included in the booklet). However, the official resources of none of these organizations disseminated information about such booklets.
As for the video supposedly from the mother of a schoolgirl who received such a booklet, it also looks very dubious. Firstly, in a number of publications it has the subtitle “09/09/2024”, while the woman in the video mentions September 1st. In addition, this video is the only mention of the existence of such a booklet, with the exception of fake videos with Russian officials, while the leaflets approved at the level of the Russian Orthodox Church and United Russia should have been received by hundreds, or even thousands, of schoolchildren in Perm alone.
Thus, everything suggests that this is a series of fake videos created, most likely, outside of Russia.
Cover photo: screenshot from viral video
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