Moscow’s new textbook for occupied Ukraine asks students to liken Russian troops to WWII heroes

Russia's Education Ministry has issued a new history textbook for schools in occupied Ukraine that blames “Ukrainian nationalists” for the collapse of the Soviet Union and frames the war in Ukraine as a continuation of World War II, according to an investigation by the outlet Verstka.

The textbook, titled “History of Our Land: Donbas and Novorossiya”, is intended for pupils in grades five through seven. One assignment asks sixth- and seventh-graders to study an image called “Heroes Z” and prove that “the feats of servicemen in the special military operation are worthy of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War”, as Russia calls the war on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945. Students are also asked to explain how the image illustrates continuity between generations of fighters.

The book claims that Ukrainian nationalist organisations, financed from abroad, pushed for the Soviet Union's breakup but failed to win support in Donbas and southern Ukraine. It makes no mention of the 1991 referendum, in which 83.9% of voters in the Donetsk region and 83.86% in the Luhansk region backed Ukrainian independence.

In its chapter on the start of the full-scale invasion, the textbook cites United Nations figures putting the death toll since 2014 at 14,500. Verstka notes that the authors do not disclose that roughly 4,500 of those killed were Ukrainian soldiers.

More than ten pages are devoted to the war and its purported causes, yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is named only once — as a “former KVN comedy-show actor” whose election, the textbook suggests, was followed by heightened aggression from Kyiv.

The textbook was added to Russia's federal list of approved school materials on 9 August, after being published on the Education Ministry's website the day before. Copies are due to reach schools in the occupied territories by 1 September 2026.