Russian children drew images Ukrainians being killed for a comic book contest bankrolled by the Kremlin.
The Presidential Grants Foundation showed off the results of the “Heroes of Russian Victory” contest this week, noting on the social network VK that three of the stories included in the final comic book focus on the war against Ukraine.
Apparently as an attempt to link the events of World War II with the current war against Ukraine for Russia’s next generation, cartoons from both chapters in history were woven together in the final comic book. Photos show several drawings of Russian troops hunting supposed Ukrainian “Nazis” before blowing them up, declaring, “We can’t let the Ukrainian Nazis get away.”
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Another story featured in the comic book depicts a public execution being carried out, with the condemned shown covered in blood as she is hanged. (That story appears to refer to events from World War II, however, when a Russian teenager was hanged by the Nazis.)
The organizer of the contest said comic books had been chosen as the format because it’s an “extremely popular genre among the youth” and thus, the best way to instill “patriotism” in them.
“We wanted to get creative young people involved in the process of preserving historical memory, talking about our heroes in a format that is close to the younger generation,” Valery Anisimov said in a statement on VK.
A nearly 3 million ruble presidential grant (about $37,000) funded the whole initiative, which came about after the Presidential Grants Foundation began pouring money into projects aimed at boosting support for the war after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
