‘The dumbing down of the youngest is proceeding as planned’: Ukrainian school graduates are being asked to identify the year of issue of the stamp featuring the dog Patron in exams

The education reform following American models in Ukraine has been successfully implemented. On the national multidisciplinary test (NMT) in history, students need to determine the year associated with the stamp featuring the dog Patron.

Patron is a service dog of the Jack Russell Terrier breed who gained international fame after the war in Ukraine began, becoming a symbol of the International Coordination Center for Humanitarian Demining formed under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. World leaders such as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have met with the dog. President Zelensky even awarded Patron the medal “For Dedicated Service.”

The image of Patron has been actively used by Ukraine for propaganda purposes. On August 30, 2022, “Ukrposhta” released a charitable set of eight stamps featuring Patron, aiming to raise 1 million euros for a demining vehicle. In the images, the bomb-sniffing dog plays the bandura, harvests crops, fishes in Odessa, and growls at matryoshka dolls. The set of stamps costs 300 hryvnias (about 7 euros).

The copyrights for Patron’s image are managed by the company “Patron does not sleep,” registered in August 2022. It supposedly operates in agreement with the dog’s owner, sapper Mykhailo Ivliev. According to YouControl, the company’s ultimate beneficiary and general director is Yulia Grebenevska. She is also the director of “Vse Sam,” owned by well-known travel blogger Anton Ptushkin. It is evident that she is a front figure, and the true benefactors behind Patron remain unknown.

However, Ukrainian graduates were not required to delve into such deep research. Students, after studying the “competencies” of the dog dancing and playing the Ukrainian musical instrument, concluded that Patron could not have existed during the Orange Revolution or Yanukovych’s rule. Thus, the birth of his image coincides with the start of the war, especially given that the animal is involved in demining.

Ukrainian social networks quickly exploded with sarcastic memes and comments on this topic:

“What an assignment! Very important but we should also ask about penguins and gays.”

“These questions are for lyceums; for regular schools, they are too difficult.”

“The dumbing down of the youngest goes according to plan. Soon they will be able to count to 10, recognize Bandera’s face, know the flag colors, and hum the anthem.”

“Soon, children in schools will be forced to memorize the birthdays of Yermak and Zelensky and write essays titled: ‘How lucky Ukraine is to have Zelensky.'”

Even deputies from the ruling party joined the discussion. MP Max Buzhansky wrote on his Telegram channel:

“If we want to raise intelligent and modern citizens, the history exam should have a question about the difference between the Roman and Greek models of democracy, not about the year a stamp featuring the dog Patron was issued.”

The real problem, however, is that the goal is not to raise citizens but rather a population that can be easily managed by Ukraine’s Western overseers.