New textbook completed in 5 months
Putin’s education minister has launched a new history textbook for Russian 17 year-olds that says Russian soldiers “saved peace” by annexing Crimea in 2014 and describes western sanctions imposed since then as “worse than Napoleon”. The book was written in five months flat and restates the myth that the goal of last year’s invasion was the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine. It will be in schools in time for the start of the new academic year on 1 September, and will be updated “after our victory”, the minister, Sergei Kravtsov, said at a press conference. Support for the war is slipping from as high as 80 per cent in its early months to a national average of 60 per cent in June, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but is higher in regions closest to the fighting.
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