
The military council plans to require Russian language courses in addition to the military training for government employees attending Myanmar’s two main civil service academies.
Russia is a major arms supplier for Myanmar’s military regime, which has sought to strengthen ties with the Russian regime even as other foreign governments have imposed increasingly restrictive sanctions on Myanmar regime officials and their cronies.
Myint Swe, the director general of the Union Civil Service Board, confirmed to Myanmar Now in August of this year that Russia was providing course materials and technical support to prepare training curricula for civilian state employees.
The junta-controlled Union Civil Service Board is a commission that oversees the two academies and is responsible for setting their curricular standards and requirements.
The curricula, which were intended for Myanmar’s two main civil service training centres: the Civil Service Academies of upper Myanmar—known colloquially as the Zee Pin Gyi academy—and lower Myanmar—known as the Hpaung Gyi academy, included Russian language courses.
“We will try to carry out the plan this year once we have agreed on the terms of our cooperation,” said Myint Swe, a retired army general.
The professors currently serving as the rectors of the Zee Pin Gyi and Hpaung Gyi academies, Kyaw Soe and Zaw Zaw, are also former military officers.
Captain Zin Yaw, an officer who defected from the military, has said that the addition of Russian language courses is an attempt by the military to attract more trainees.
“It’s just an incentive for the trainees as they might join the course in the hopes of getting Russian scholarships,” Captain Zin Yaw said.
A delegation from Russia visited the Zee Pin Gyi academy near Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Region on Wednesday to discuss plans for skill enhancement training and Russian language courses, as reported in regime-controlled newspapers the next day.
Evgeny Dmitrievich Grigoriev—chair of the foreign relations committee for the Saint Petersburg city government—headed the delegation, which observed military training exercises and shooting practice at the academy, a junta-run newspaper said.
The Hpaung Gyi civil service academy, located in Hlegu Township, Yangon, was founded in 1965 under the military regime headed by Gen. Ne Win. The Zee Pin Gyi academy was founded under the military dictatorship of Sr. Gen. Than Shwe in 1995.
Former general Aung Thaw, who graduated from the Defence Services Academy in the same class as junta chief Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, is the current chairman of the junta-controlled Union Civil Service Board that oversees the academies.

The former military dictators, as well as former president Thein Sein—also a former general—used the academies for decades to provide basic military training for state employees.
The government of the National League for Democracy, which assumed power in 2016, eliminated rules requiring military uniforms and military training at the academies.
Myanmar Now reported in 2019 that civil service academies were deliberately indoctrinating civil service trainees to instil loyalty to the military. The NLD made attempts to reform civil service training standards, but the academies returned to teaching the old curricula unchecked after the military seized power in 2021.
Course materials used at the academies have included various ultranationalist, anti-Muslim, and pro-military ideas. Materials currently used at the academy teach that the 2008 constitution reflects the will of the people, and that the 2021 coup was necessary for Myanmar’s security.
The curriculum for civil servants training at the academies includes eight subjects: management, economics, political science, social science, law, information and communications, English language, and defence. However, all these subjects are taught online except for defence, the only subject taught on campus.
According to Dr. Soe Thura Zaw, a dentist and whistleblower who exposed the civil service academies’ attempts to indoctrinate civil servants with pro-military propaganda in 2019, “These training centres have become places for converting civil servants of all ranks into the cells that make up the military’s cadres. This is where they instil their values and ideology.”
Dr. Soe Thura Zaw, who attended a training course himself at the Zee Pin Gyi academy in 2017 during the NLD administration, claimed he and his classmates were told not to marry members of religious minorities or buy from their shops.
The doctor also once published a social media post noting similarities between the academies’ political science course materials and ideas expressed in public speeches by members of the ultranationalist, anti-Muslim Ma Ba Tha movement.
According to a high-ranking civil servant from Naypyitaw, who also underwent training at both of the main civil service academies before joining the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement after the coup, the style of teaching and administration at the schools has become purely military.
“They conducted training in the military way, and even the relationship between the trainees and the instructors was reminiscent of the military,” the civil servant said.