Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of people on both sides have been killed, injured, or abducted. The war has taken a financial toll as well, with Russia's economy in severe crisis. Why, then, does the majority of the Russian population continue to support the invasion and President Vladimir Putin? Prof. Dr. Krassimir Stojanov, Chair of Philosophy of Education and Systematic Pedagogy at KU, sees the main reason in a massive indoctrination within the Russian education system and is now investigating this issue with his research team.

The project "Systemic Indoctrination and Its Ideological Foundations in Russian Education after 2022" at KU is being funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with approximately 566,000 euros over three years. The central hypothesis: the strikingly high approval — reliable estimates place it at 70 to 80 percent — among the Russian population for Putin's regime and the war against Ukraine cannot be explained by propaganda and media control alone, but is based largely on "systematic indoctrination in the education system."

The project was co-developed in key ways by a couple with a Russian background: Dr. Fedor Korochkin and Dr. Polina Vasineva. Both previously held tenured positions at a major university in St. Petersburg in the fields of Philosophy of Education and Practical Philosophy. After the outbreak of the war in 2022, they fled Russia and sought refuge in various countries and at different universities. With support from KU's Research Funding Center, they also spent several months at KU as visiting researchers in 2022. During this time, the project idea and proposal draft were developed in close cooperation with Krassimir Stojanov. Since October 2025, Korochkin and Vasineva have taken on essential roles in the project as research associates.

The concept of "systemic indoctrination" in the project title was developed by Korochkin. The topic of indoctrination itself is not new in pedagogy, philosophy of education, or educational theory, explains KU Professor Stojanov, but until now it has been discussed mainly in relation to the actions of individual teachers or institutions. "In our project, we are asking how an entire education system inculcates a particular ideology in the minds of the young generation." To that end, the team examines state-mandated textbooks, syllabi, and curricula, as well as concrete measures introduced by the central government. After the war began in 2022, for example, all university instructors in Russia were required to show students an official PowerPoint presentation containing explanations and justifications of the so-called "special military operation." This was an experience Korochkin and Vasineva had themselves. "That was the final trigger for them to flee," Stojanov reports. "They refused to disseminate this propaganda."

"Their experiences and access make the project especially valuable," Stojanov emphasizes. The team is supported by cooperation partners: Canadian scholar Dr. Christopher Martin, Dortmund-based researcher Dr. Johannes Drerup, and an independent Russian sociologist. The latter specializes in qualitative-empirical research and, before the war, led a private social-science research institute in Russia that has since been placed on the "foreign agents" blacklist.

At the core of the ideology under analysis is the concept of the so-called "Russian World" (Russkij Mir). It ties together nationalist, traditionalist, and authoritarian elements, explains Stojanov: "This includes the idea that all Russian-speaking regions belong to the Russian World — and that Russia has both the right and the duty to control them." The ideology emphasizes traditional gender roles, the Orthodox Church, national historical myths, and the Russian language as cultural anchors. These contents appear not only in history and language instruction but increasingly in newly introduced courses such as "The Foundations of Russian Statehood."

A crucial feature of systemic indoctrination is that it occurs even without the intention of individual teachers. Many teachers try to present state-imposed content with some distance and focus on neutral topics in the classroom. "For us, it is an intriguing question to what extent even this passive stance by teachers contributes to indoctrination," Stojanov says. The researchers also aim to examine how the effect of "closed-mindedness" — the shutting out of alternative worldviews — shapes classroom practices: "There are teachers who firmly believe they are fostering critical thinking, yet are so deeply embedded in this closed interpretive framework that the space for criticism shrinks automatically."

According to the researchers, the relevance of the project reaches far beyond the current political situation in Russia. "Given the present situation in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world, it is clear that authoritarian political currents exist in many places," Stojanov stresses. "For them, systemic indoctrination through the education system — using tools developed by Putin's regime — may prove a powerful temptation for advancing their anti-democratic agendas."