" If before 2022, the subject was seen as obsolete, hardly taken seriously by students who at times saw it more as an opportunity to goof off, Russia’s all-out aggression has given it a new life.  Volodymyr Komlyk, a reserve officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and teacher of the “Defense of Ukraine” in Kyiv Oblast, on Oct. 1, 2024. (Lisa Bukreyeva / The Kyiv Independent)The reform, launched in 2024, has outfitted nearly 600 classrooms at schools that have volunteered to participate in the trial phase with new equipment from first aid training kits, interactive whiteboards and computers, to drone simulators. The new program will be mandatory across all schools in 2027. The authors of the reform and its proponents are quick to distinguish the “Defense of Ukraine” from its counterpart in Russia, where a similar mandatory school program returned basic military training to the curriculum after the start of the full-scale invasion.