BEAUTIES & BEASTS
Putin’s pal parades gun-toting beauty queens to lure teen girls to fight for Russia in his ‘Hitler Youth’
DESPERATE Vladimir Putin has recruited beauty pageant contestants armed with guns to "inspire" teenage girls to fight for him.
The Russian tyrant has launched a twisted bid to indoctrinate schoolgirls to sign up for war.
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Since Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine in February 2022, most of the country's propaganda has been aimed at men and boys.
But now the dictator has switched his focus to women and girls.
Numbers have swollen in Putin’s Yunarmia, or Young Army, likened to the Hitler Youth, with 1.4 million signed up.
In Primorsky region, schoolgirls aged just 15 and 16 are for the first time being inducted in “military-patriotic education”.
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And in neighbouring Belarus, beauty pageant contestants have been enlisted to "inspire" girls and women to join up and fight for Putin-ally and vote-rigging dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Competitors from the Miss Belarus 2023 pageant were made to attend a course in military instruction, with Lukashenko parading them toting guns.
Nadezhda Tolstikova, who won the Miss Top Model of Miss Belarus 2023 contest, said: “The impressions are simply amazing, I’ve already practiced shooting, I’ve shot with a rifle.
“The smell of gunpowder…definitely, I shall return to shooting.”
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Colonel Sergei Grebennikov, deputy commander of dictator Lukashenko’s internal troops, suggested the event was aimed at glamorising the military.
He said: "They will see with their own eyes what our strong, respectable guys are capable of."
A report said girls would be “inspired” to join the military and security services in the repressive state.
In Primorsky, 75 schoolgirls were trained in military “basics” including drilling, tactical, fire and physical training, and instruction in radiation, chemical and biological protection.
It was the first “female session” at the Avangard centre for military-patriotic education of the youth.
By the end of the year another 300 girls - and 1,000 boys - will be enrolled on intense five-day courses seen as precursors to military careers or mobilisation.
Such moves are underway across Russia’s 11 time zones amid Putin’s war against Ukraine.
The organisation has been accused of militarisation of young people in Russia.
In Primorsky, senior education official Oksana Novikova told the girls: “Love of the Motherland, patriotism, and responsibility have always been instilled in young people, regardless of gender.
“You are the first in our female team, so I want to wish you good luck, patience and, of course, unlock your potential - go for it.”
But Telegram comments attacked the Primorsky militarisation of girls.
One said: “Girls, girls, girls, what are you doing? Who were you going to fight with, who attacked you? Hitler? Obama? Zelensky? Or idiocy?”
Another commented on ChTD channel: “The girls haven’t even lived yet, but they are already rinsing their brains and preparing to die for the whims of crazy grandfathers.”
A third said: “I don’t have the strength to look at this.”
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One more complained: “We are awash with military indoctrination, first for boys and now, as we see, for girls.
“This war has already killed enough. How much longer? How many more must die?”
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