Kremlin narratives are quietly infiltrating every corner of life in the West. Perhaps most insidiously, their presence in school textbooks has become one of Russia’s most powerful tools for shaping the minds of children and young people over the long term. These propaganda messages mould how young learners understand the world, their own identity, and their values.
A recent study by Massimiliano di Pasquale and Iryna Kashchei exposes how Russia’s strategic narratives have found their way into Italian secondary school textbooks. Their research showcases six key myths presented to students: Kyivan Rus is portrayed as the birthplace of modern Russia and its people; Ukraine — along with Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — is dismissed as a “failed state”; Crimea is described as having “returned” to Russia following a disputed referendum; Russia’s current policies are framed as a defensive response to NATO’s expansion; the idea of a “Russian region” is promoted, grouping Russia with Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and the Baltic states; and Eastern European culture is depicted as essentially the same as Russian culture.
The researchers point to four examples from Italian school textbooks, including La geografia per tutti by Carlo Tondelli from 2018. This one pushes the idea that Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were basically part of Russia and are now “artificial states.” Oddly enough, Ukrainian and Belarusian don’t get a mention among Slavic languages, while much less widely spoken languages — like Maltese — do appear in other language groups. The book also excludes Crimea from Ukraine’s total area, and when listing 22 cultural figures from Eastern Europe, 16 of them are Russian.
In the 2019 textbook Ti racconto il mondo by Laura Ferrari and Giulio Mancini, the so-called “Russian region” appears, alongside misleading claims about Ukraine’s independence, Crimea, and the country’s economy. The authors also assert that Ukraine is “currently one of the poorest countries in Europe.” Adding to this, they encourage students to search online for “a beautiful photograph of a Russian landscape” and then vote with their classmates on “the most enchanting picture” — a curious invitation that subtly steers admiration towards Russia.
Meanwhile, in Campo Base 2, Giancarlo Corbellini presents Lviv not just as a Polish and Austrian city, but also a Russian one. He describes the conflict following Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 as a war “in the eastern provinces between the army and groups of pro-Russian insurgents.” Corbellini also points to Moldova’s poverty, attributing it to the country’s “loss of ties within the Soviet system,” framing it as a consequence of Soviet collapse rather than ongoing geopolitical complexities.
Last year’s textbook Regioni e stati d’Europa sparked widespread media attention and prompted official responses from the Ukrainian Embassy in Italy. Its authors paint Soviet communism as peaceful, while contrasting the French, who are said to have a strong sense of “national belonging,” with Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Georgians and others, who are portrayed as being consumed by “negative nationalism.” Students are also urged to remember that, in the new millennium, Russia “regained a certain degree of political weight on the global stage,” with examples including Russia’s 2014 military intervention in the “Ukrainian crisis in support of the Russian-speaking population […] and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia, which was not recognised by the international community.”
Speaking to The Ukrainian Week, journalist and researcher Iryna Kashchei pointed out that until 2021, public debate in Italy about school textbooks was virtually non-existent — despite past scandals. These earlier controversies mostly involved racist or misogynistic content, which attracted media attention and eventually led to corrections. Yet, the deeper issue of Russian imperial and colonial narratives woven into textbook content remained entirely unexamined.
According to the researcher, these narratives slip into children’s books through distorted sources, with Russia long having mastered the art of exploiting democratic tools. In Italy, one key vulnerability is the lack of oversight from the Ministry of Education when it comes to what gets included in textbooks.
“The process can be surprisingly simple: false information appears in the media — textbook authors pick it up — publishers print it — and it ends up in classrooms. A journalist in Italy can write, for example, that since 2014 there’s been ‘a civil war between pro-Russian separatists and the government in Kyiv’ in Donbas. A textbook author can then repeat that line verbatim. A publisher can print it. But for the student, democracy stops there. School is compulsory by law. They have no choice but to learn from a distorted textbook, memorise it, and repeat it in class,” explains Iryna Kashchei.
In theory, parents can ask their child’s school to replace a textbook — but even that is fraught with difficulties. “We haven’t found a single textbook on the market that’s completely free of Russian narratives. There’s only more or less Kremlin propaganda in each one. And it’s not because the authors are bad — it’s because decolonisation and rooting out bias is a long, complex process that nobody in Italy has really started. Italy simply isn’t ready yet to see Russia as a coloniser,” Kashchei adds.
“School textbooks are just a symptom of a much bigger problem”
Ukrainian activists and parents have voiced their outrage over Italian school textbooks, sending letters to the Embassy and to Ukrainian studies experts — and it’s easy to see why. “Just imagine a child who fled occupation, only to find themselves in ‘safe Italy,’ forced to read that Russia ‘came to the aid of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas.’ It’s no wonder that in some of the textbooks we received, these children had angrily scribbled out certain paragraphs about Ukraine. Yet among Italian parents, I haven’t seen much sign of protest. Specialists from Ukraine and other Slavic countries, yes. Italian parents, unfortunately, not so much — except perhaps on social media,” Iryna Kashchei told The Ukrainian Week.
Still, Kashchei was pleasantly surprised by the reaction of a teacher from the Marche region. Upon discovering that the textbook was riddled with inaccuracies about post-Soviet countries, she apologised and asked the parents of a Ukrainian pupil which alternative book they would recommend. Yet, as Kashchei points out, Italy faces a severe shortage of printed materials that offer reliable information on the post-Soviet space.
The researcher also stresses that, sadly, school textbooks are merely a reflection of a wider issue. At an institutional level, Italy’s response to Russian propaganda remains weak and reluctant — largely because it is not seen as a real threat.
“I’ll give you just one example: the vast majority of Italians — not 99%, but probably 99.9% — still believe that all of Ukraine is Ukrainian-speaking. They think Crimea and Donbas are simply home to ethnic Russians who, for some reason, aren’t allowed by Kyiv to speak their own language. The story goes that they’re a poor, oppressed minority. And what’s striking is that even people who are openly pro-Ukrainian believe this. The real linguistic and ethnic makeup of Ukraine is something only dedicated experts — like my co-author Massimiliano Di Pasquale — or those with close Ukrainian connections, such as men married to Ukrainian women, really understand,” Iryna Kashchei told The Ukrainian Week.
This misleading image has been painted by Russian propaganda, which has long had a foothold in Italy. “And there was almost nothing to counter it. There still isn’t much. Italy has never had a state-funded ‘Ukrainian House’ or cultural centre. Most cultural initiatives are carried out by the Ukrainian diaspora. Major Italian media outlets don’t have bureaus in Kyiv, and there are no full-time Ukrainian journalists based in Rome, and so on. Considering all this, Italians are actually showing a remarkable amount of empathy,” the researcher adds.
