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Reuters
Reuters
Politics

Russian teacher rejected Kremlin propaganda, then paid the price

Russia Kremlin Ukraine FSB Vladimir Putin WhatsApp Alexei Navalny
Andrei Shestakov, a history teacher and former police officer from eastern Russia who was prosecuted after expressing in public his opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine, poses with his partner in this undated handout picture. Andrei Shestakov/Handout via REUTERS

Days after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Andrei Shestakov opened a set of files in a WhatsApp group chat for history teachers like himself in his town in east Russia.

The files - which Reuters reviewed and contain dozens of pages of documents and presentations as well as video links - are instructions on how to teach teenage school children about the conflict. It’s unclear who shared the files to the group chat, but many of the documents carry the crest of the education ministry in Moscow.

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