Russian schools purchase drones for training schoolkids

Schools in several Russian regions have been purchasing “training drones” and other equipment needed to teach children to pilot drones. Independent news outlet iStories found the purchase contracts on a public records site.

Two St. Petersburg schools are planning to spend a million rubles (over $12,000) each on drones for schoolchildren. One school will supply kits “for independently assembling quadcopters” and will offer a course on Building and Programming Drones for students ages 12–15 next fall. iStories notes that students at this school currently make crafts to send to Russian troops at the front and meet with teachers from occupied Mariupol.

A middle school in Yakutsk will purchase assembly kits for DJI Mini 3 Pro drones. Both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war use these drones, which are manufactured in China, for reconnaissance and modify them for other uses.

A middle school in Kaliningrad plans to buy “an educational module for drone development” for 9.4 million rubles ($116,000). The school will spend another 5 million rubles ($61,725) on a “software and hardware package for piloting drones equipped for aerial photography.”

In addition, iStories reports, in April 2023, a high school in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk bought eight Orlyonok and Osa “children’s” drones at a cost of 1.5 million rubles ($18,500). The drones were created by a local tech complex “to train schoolchildren in drone control skills.”