Putin wants Russia’s youth to become ultranationalist patriots. Many are all in.

At age 25, Maryana Naumova is one of the freshest faces of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wartime propaganda machine.

She has a show on the flagship Kremlin-controlled television network Channel One, 85,000 subscribers on Telegram and is a regular speaker at youth forums, universities and talk shows across the country.

Naumova is one of thousands of young Russians who have inserted themselves into their country’s new wartime system, adopting Kremlin spin as their own beliefs and ensuring that Putin’s core ideology, of ultranationalist patriotism and Orthodox Christian values, will be carried forward by a new generation. This includes the idea that the United States wants to destroy Russia and that Russia is a peace-seeking victim rather than an aggressor. Like Naumova, they see themselves as patriotic truth-tellers, not instruments of spin.

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