Kravtsov told the state news agency RIA Novosti that the course allocates 68 hours to basic military training over four academic years, or half of the "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland" subject. The share was previously 20 percent, a 2.5-fold increase, according to The Moscow Times.
The course is taught to students in grades 8 through 11. Its program covers the fundamentals of national security, drill practice, military regulations and discipline, civil defense, the use of protective equipment and actions during evacuation. Separate topics are devoted to countering extremism and terrorism and to first aid.
Kravtsov has said the program includes the study of unmanned aerial vehicles and training camps.
Since September 1, basic military training has been a single mandatory course alongside life safety. The Education Ministry has said the course's purpose is to build readiness for military service and to impart knowledge and skills related to the defense of the state.
Authorities began preparing to make basic military training a separate discipline in April. Moscow City Duma deputy Yekaterina Razzakova explained that the initiative effectively revives pre-conscription training in an updated format, with an emphasis on survival skills and drone operation.
Larisa Sulima, first deputy education minister of the Moscow region, said a "historical and patriotic component" would be added to the course to address ideological tasks. Viktor Vodolatsky, deputy head of the State Duma committee for CIS affairs, has called for making basic military training universal, starting from the fifth grade.
Basic military training existed in Soviet schools. It was removed from the curriculum in 1993 and returned in 2023 within life safety lessons. From 2024, life safety was replaced by "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland."
In May, Important Stories reported that over five years the authorities had invested more than 50 billion rubles in military-patriotic centers for schoolchildren. Researchers at Yale University identified at least 210 educational institutions in Russia and in occupied Ukrainian territories where, since the start of the war, forcibly displaced Ukrainian children have been placed and subjected to forced military training and indoctrination.