A Russian school in west London has been teaching its pupils how to assemble guns and throw grenades as part of a strict anti-western curriculum.
The Russian Embassy School in Notting Hill is attended by the children of some known and suspected Russian spies as well as Soviet diplomats working in the UK.
They are taught on history lessons that Ukraine is a ‘puppet of the West’ that has set out to ‘destabilise’ Russia, while they practice lobbing hand grenades by throwing tennis balls during PE.
In the last academic year, the school curriculum also included a class named ‘combat properties of the Kalashnikov assault rifle’, in which pupils would learn how to assemble and fire the weapon, according to The Times.
Pupils returned to classes at the school on Monday, along with thousands of others schools across the UK, with pictures showing them hoisting the Russian tricolour flag and singing the national anthem in the playground.
The Russian embassy’s deputy ambassador Alexander Gusarov currently serves as the headteacher and it is believed his children attend the school.
Ukrainian open-source intelligence agency Molfar has previously accused the 42-year-old of acting as an undercover spy for Moscow’s foreign intelligence service, known as SVR.
Other parents of pupils at the school are thought to include Colonel Maxim Elovik who served as the Russian embassy’s defence attaché until he was expelled from the UK in May after he was unmasked as a top spy.
Elovik had been in Britain for around a decade and was a also an assistant military attaché at Russia’s embassy in the US.
Around 100 pupils are thought to attend the school, 60 of which are aged between seven and 18 who take classes for five days a week over three terms each year.
The remaining 40 or so attend classes in the evening.
Of these around three quarters have parents who work at the Russian embassy or the trade mission, while the rest are thought to be the children of Russian parents living in Britain or children of those working at the Belarus embassy.
Pupils, some of which hold British citizenship or dual nationality, are required to have knowledge of the Russian language.
Parents who are not diplomatic officials are made to pay fees of less than £1000 year, according to The Times.
The school is just half a mile away from the Russian embassy and is situated in a Russian Victorian townhouse.
Upon entering the school pupils are greeted with a portrait of Vladimir Putin which hangs in the hallway entrance.
Teachers must follow the Russian state curriculum, with propagandised history lessons that present the war in Ukraine as part of Russia’s historical mission.
Lesson plans for the last academic year reportedly revealed how older pupils were taught hour long classes in battlefield maneuvers, military signals, and first aid for combat situations every week, according to The Times.
One former pupil, who left the school in 2022 but did not want to be named, told the newspaper that pupils also practice throwing grenades using tennis balls.
Pictures from the school’s sports day earlier this year show children taking part in competitive bandaging and crossbow shooting.
Pupils also dressed up in Red Army, the military force of the Russian Soviet Republic, while celebrating Victory Day, which commemorates the country’s victory over the Nazis in 1945, according to The Times.
The school does not come under the jurisdiction of the Department for Education or the schools inspectorate.
This is because it is subject to diplomatic exemptions as a branch of the Russian embassy.
There are around 80 other Russian embassy schools located around the world, although one school in Warsaw was shut down by the Polish government last year in a move branded as an ‘invasion’ by the Kremlin.