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Russia to Rewrite School History Textbooks Again After Teachers Flag Errors and Propaganda
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Russia is again preparing to revise and reissue its state-approved school history textbooks following a wave of criticism from teachers, according to Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZRU).
Educators have flagged factual errors, internal contradictions, and overt ideological distortions in the current editions.
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Updated textbooks are scheduled for release in 2026, including a second edition for grades 5–9 and a third edition for upper secondary schools. The SZRU notes that the volume of feedback from teachers has been unprecedented, with some educators submitting dozens of pages of detailed comments on a single textbook.
Despite the criticism, Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian Military Historical Society and an aide to the Russian president, described the repeated rewriting of textbooks as a “normal process,” portraying history as a “living organism.” The SZRU points out that Medinsky’s remarks reflected a familiar pattern in Russia’s historical policy, marked by emotional narratives and claims lacking a solid scholarly basis.
The new editions are expected to expand sections explaining the causes of the so-called “special military operation ,” while Russia’s modern history curriculum will be extended to include a reference to a meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Anchorage. According to the SZRU, these changes once again underscore how school history is being used as a tool of state propaganda and to legitimize the Kremlin’s aggressive policies.
“Against this backdrop, Russia is planning to partially or fully restrict access to Wikipedia within the next one to two years. The authorities justify the move by claiming that historical facts about the tsarist, Soviet, and modern periods are allegedly being distorted,” the service added.
Russia is also advancing a state-backed publishing project that incorporates temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory into its official historical narrative.
According to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, Moscow is promoting a multi-volume work titled Anthology of Historical Cities and Villages of Russia, which includes regions currently under Russian occupation in Ukraine.
The Center says Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea are already distributing the publication, describing it as a pseudo-academic initiative aimed at reshaping the historical identity of seized territories and reinforcing Russia’s territorial claims.
Reports from the Crimean outlet Voice of Crimea indicate that the anthology consists of 10 volumes published across 13 books. One of the sections, titled “Crimea and Novorossiya,” reportedly covers not only Crimea but also occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine. Copies are expected to be supplied to institutions such as the so-called Crimean Federal University and the peninsula’s main research library.
Earlier, it was reported that Russia plans to supply schoolchildren in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk region with more than 100,000 publications presenting a revised version of the region’s history.
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