“They don’t know how to pull the bolt of a rifle” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 43 (7488) of 03/15/2023

The State Assembly – el kurultai of the Republic of Altai will appeal to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation with a proposal to return elementary military training (NVP) to Russian schools. The deputies propose to allow the teaching of discipline to retired officers, participants in hostilities. According to the deputies, the need for a mandatory NVP was shown by partial mobilization: many of those called up did not have the skills needed on the battlefield.

The State Assembly – el kurultai of the Republic of Altai at its session on March 14 approved the text of the appeal to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation “on the issue of introducing basic military training in educational organizations.” The appeal refers to the need to introduce compulsory CVP classes in Russian schools for students from the fifth to the eleventh grade.

The draft document was submitted by members of the regional parliament’s committee on national politics, education, culture, public associations and the media. “Recent mobilization has shown that young people who were educated after the 1990s, who did not study NVP at school, do not know how to put on a gas mask, assemble and disassemble an assault rifle, throw a grenade, pull the bolt of a rifle, bandage a wounded man on the battlefield or apply a splint what to do on the command “flash on the right” and air raid alert, ”the authors of the appeal regret. They call for equipping classes with training equipment, and at the end of the course, taking students to military units for shooting. The deputies are also asking to allow the teaching of NVP to retired officers, participants in hostilities.

As committee chairman Natalia Ekeyeva (United Russia) told the deputies of the State Assembly, a group of independent deputies approached the State Assembly with the idea of ​​reviving the NVP as a separate school subject. According to her, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Altai, public organizations, and the regional branch of DOSAAF took part in the discussion of the text of the appeal at the committee meeting.

Independent MP Sergei Kukhtuekov asked if the authors of the appeal envisage an increase in the teaching load for schoolchildren if this initiative is implemented. “Within the framework of life safety (school subject “Fundamentals of life safety.”— “b”). Those modules that are currently in the OBZH can be carried out in the form of additional classes. And even some of them will be included in the initial military training,” suggested Mrs. Yekeyeva.

According to independent MP Askar Tulebaev, there is an understanding of the need for a mandatory NWP “in the whole country.” Mikhail Fedkin (KPRF), referring to the personal experience of a NVP teacher, suggested “not to invent a new wheel, because it already exists, but to restore” Soviet practice. Since the second half of the 1960s, basic military training has been taught in the ninth and tenth grades.

“In fact, the appeal is necessary. Necessary given the current situation in the country,” summed up the brief discussion, the speaker of the republican parliament Artur Kokhoev (“United Russia”). In early March, Mr. Kokhoev himself came up with this initiative at a meeting of the Council of Legislators of the Siberian Federal District, held in Krasnoyarsk. As a result, not a single vote against the draft appeal was filed.

The Republican Ministry of Education and Science supports the appeal of the regional parliament. “From the new academic year, the basics of military training will be included in the life safety course for students in grades 10-11. In addition, under this module, schoolchildren will undergo mandatory five-day training camps, ”Minister Olga Savrasova told Kommersant.

As Kommersant reported, in November last year, the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kravtsov, said that the NVP course would appear in Russian schools from the next academic year. The press service of the federal ministry then specified that classes in this course would be extracurricular. In January 2023, Mr. Kravtsov, at a meeting with the Russian military, announced that initial military training in schools could be introduced if this initiative is approved by parents.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk