‘Important Conversations for Preschoolers’ Moscow brings its pro-war lesson series to kindergartens across Russia and occupied Ukraine
A new school year is underway in Russia, bringing with it a fresh round of the Kremlin’s “patriotic” lesson series, Important Conversations. This year, the Education Ministry is introducing a newly designed version of the program specifically for kindergarten and preschool students, rolling it out in nearly 20 regions across Russia as well as in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Meduza explains how the Kremlin has tailored these pro-Putin classes for its youngest pupils yet.
On September 1, nearly 20 Russian regions, along with Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk regions, officially launched a preschool version of the state-sponsored “patriotic” lesson series Important Conversations. According to the independent outlet Agentstvo, kindergartens have already received teaching manuals for the extracurricular program.
Agentstvo reviewed reports from the first sessions held in kindergartens in the Ivanovo and Chelyabinsk regions. Photos from the lessons showed a textbook titled “Important Conversations for Preschoolers.”
According to Agentstvo, the book was published in 2025 with a print run of 3,000 copies as part of a series for elementary schools called “My History.” The cover features a label indicating that the textbook “complies with the federal educational program for preschool education.” The subtitle reads, “The World We Live In,” and the cover lists topics such as “Family Day,” and “What Can the Kremlin Tell Us?” The book covers 30 “important topics” in total.
The volume was co-authored by Natalia Vinogardova, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, and Irina Khomyakova, a Pedagogical Sciences PhD candidate. Both work at the Center for Primary General Education within the Russian Education Academy’s Institute for Education Development Strategy. The institute is also responsible for designing materials used in the Important Conversations curriculum for older students, Agentstvo notes.
The book’s main character is a little bear named Umka, whose job is introduce children to the world around them. It opens with the topic “Russia — My Homeland,” where the authors compare Russia’s size to that of Western countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.
Roughly eight percent of the content focuses on the military and Victory Day, the holiday commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. For instance, in a chapter on family, four pages are dedicated to the concept of “defending the homeland.” Teachers are instructed to tell children that “the most important thing in life is to serve the Motherland.” The book also introduces different types of armored vehicles and discusses Moscow’s Patriot Park military theme park.
One of the final chapters is dedicated entirely to Victory Day. Spanning six pages, it covers the military parade, the St. George ribbon, the eternal flame, and the “Immortal Regiment” march.
The initiative to expand Important Conversations into kindergartens came from Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Shortly after he raised the idea in fall 2024, dozens of Russian kindergartens reported holding the lessons with their students.
Starting in September 2025, the program is being officially trialed in preschools across 19 Russian regions and occupied parts of several Ukrainian regions. At the end of the school year, the authorities will decide whether to implement it nationwide in all state-run kindergartens.
The Important Conversations program was first introduced in Russian schools in September 2022. According to Education Ministry guidelines, the weekly sessions cover topics such as patriotism and, beginning in fifth grade, the “special military operation” (the Kremlin’s official euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine).
