A school in the city of Vladivostok, Russia, has been renamed after Yevgeny Orlov, a Wagner Group mercenary who was killed in Ukraine.

Source: Russian BBC service

Details: Orlov was involved in hostilities in Donbas and Syria, and had been added to the Ukrainian sanctions list as a Wagner Group mercenary.

He is referred to as a "Hero of Russia" in the decree of the Vladivostok city administration and on the school's website, but his family is sure that he was never awarded that title. The school's management is not aware of this: they apparently just followed the instructions they were given by the city administration.  

The resolution on changing the name of school No. 14 was signed in October 2022, but neither the local media nor the school’s management were informed.  

Orlov was killed in Ukraine in summer 2022.

Renaming schools in honour of participants in Russia's war against Ukraine is no longer uncommon, the BBC notes.

War dead are being used as role models in a number of Russian oblasts: journalists have discovered schools that have been named after soldiers killed in Ukraine in Amur and Belgorod oblasts, Bashkortostan, Bryansk and Voronezh oblasts, Dagestan, Kaluga, Novosibirsk and Rostov oblasts, Tatarstan, and Ulyanovsk Oblast.

In some oblasts, propaganda campaigns glorifying Wagner Group mercenaries are being held in schools. For example, a "hero's desk" in honour of a Wagnerite who was killed appeared in February in a rural school in Tyumen Oblast - an initiative by United Russia, the pro-presidential party. On this occasion, the school organised a commemorative event at which the deputy head of the district made an important clarification, saying that the soldier had no criminal record.

Background: Representatives of the Wagner Group have been recruiting convicts from Russian penal colonies for the war in Ukraine for months. They are taken to the front line after being pardoned by the Russian president and having their convictions lifted.

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