Russia Spends 50 Billion Rubles on Military Training Centers for Schoolchildren

Since 2020, the Russian authorities have spent RUB 50 billion on two networks that prepare schoolchildren for war – Avangard and Voin military training centers.

In 2021, at the proposal of then–Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Vladimir Putin ordered the opening of Avangard centers in all cities with populations exceeding 100,000.

As a result, by autumn 2025, 147 such centers had been established across 70 regions of Russia, according to investigators from the publication Vot Tak.

Complete information about their funding is unavailable, but authorities in 39 regions have already allocated RUB 36.5 billion to operate these camps.

An additional RUB 15 billion from the federal budget was allocated to another network of centers called “Voin”(Warrior).

The network includes 21 branches, four of which operate in occupied territories.

By 2030, the Voin centers are planned to be opened in every region of Russia.

Eighth- and tenth-grade students are sent to these centers for military training camps as part of the mandatory course “Fundamentals of Security and Homeland Defense.”

There, children wear military uniforms, march in formation, learn how to handle weapons, and operate drones.

The total number of children who have gone through these programs is unknown. However, in the Volgograd region alone, 5,500 people from Ukrainian regions, as well as the Volgograd and Belgorod regions, completed training at the Avangard military training center starting in 2024.

Since 2024, the Avangard military training center has been organizing military-patriotic sessions at major children’s camps on the Black Sea coast – including Orlyonok in Krasnodar Krai, as well as Artek and Alye Parusa in annexed Crimea.

During these three-week sessions, teenagers undergo basic military training and study the state-approved version of the history of Russia and the Russian Armed Forces.