Mayor Yevgeny Naumov attends the opening of Russia’s first school for drone training, Krasnodar, 26 September 2025 . Photo: Yevgeny Naumov, Telegram
Russia’s first school teaching children how to assemble and operate drones has opened in the southern city of Krasnodar, Mayor Yevgeny Naumov announced on Friday.
Naumov said pupils would acquire new and useful skills, free of charge, such as building and piloting drones, and using a 3D printer, adding that the courses would use both simulators and real drones.
“Pupils will be tested for fine motor skills and a natural gift for science,” Naumov added.
Naumov said staff at the school would include experienced instructors and Ukraine war veterans, and that he hoped the new skills would also serve the children well in peacetime, adding that drones now had a number of functions that were not solely military in nature.
The opening of the Krasnodar school reflects the increasing importance of drones in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, with a huge array of different drone types now operating on the front line.
Russia has sought to heighten both a sense of patriotism and instil “traditional values” in its youth since the war began in February 2022, with the school and pre-school curriculum seeing increased militarisation for pupils at an ever younger age.
In August, Russia’s Education Ministry announced that it would roll out the Important Conversations propaganda programme, which is already mandatory in Russian schools, in kindergartens in 22 regions of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine this academic year.
