Overview

• About 83 participants ages 8–17 trained at a Rostov-region Don Cossack Cadet School camp near the Ukrainian border.
• Exercises featured a route march along the River Don with crawling across sand and wading through water while carrying weapons.
• Children handled rifles—some genuine, others replicas—and practiced throwing grenades and firing dummy shots.
• Eight-year-old Ivan Glushchenko described grenade throwing as a highlight, while older campers like Anton voiced plans for future service.
• Organizers were war veterans, including an instructor wounded in Ukraine, and Vladimir Yanenko defended the program as patriotic education as critics denounced it as propaganda.