Yahoo TV

STORY: In Vladimir Putin's Russia, the Kremlin even writes the history textbooks.

These books enter schools next month and give a completely revised interpretation of history.

They reflect Putin's historical view: pride at the achievements of the superpower Soviet Union, indignation at the humiliations of the Soviet collapse...

and acclaim for the "rebirth" of Russia when Putin took over in 1999.

The four textbooks for 16- to 18-year-old schoolchildren were published by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky.

The final chapter focuses on the Ukraine war, which Moscow calls the Special Military Operation.

It describes how the West became, quote, "fixated" on destabilizing Russia and dismembering it to grab its resources.

Mikhail Kopitsa is a Russian history teacher who left after the invasion of Ukraine and now teaches in Montenegro.

"From what I've seen, this is a propaganda text. It’s not a textbook, not a school book. I’m talking first and foremost about the paragraphs and pages dedicated to the so-called 'special military operation' (ed. note: as Moscow refers to Ukraine conflict). It is 100% not study material. And it is written accordingly. It’s not questions and tasks aimed at forming skills and knowledge. They are very clearly and blatantly aimed at forming a certain pre-decided point of view and pre-decided interpretation of events."

Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, which has sought to rewrite its own history and purge much of its Soviet and Tsarist past.

Explicitly endorsed histories have for millennia been used by the powerful to influence their own legacies.

The West's attempt to punish Russia over Ukraine has failed, the book says, but it says Russian assets totalling over $1 trillion were stolen in the West.

It ends with biographies of some of the Russians who have fallen in the Ukraine war - which it doesn't call a war.