They prepare for classes and make their beds together, gently setting a teddy bear and a stuffed crocodile on pillows. They look intently at themselves as they fix oversize white bows, meant to symbolize purity, in their hair.

And they wear gas masks for training drills.

They are “the Little Spies of Putin” — or at least that’s what a French publication called them in a piece that inspired the photographer Sergey Kozmin to document them for his series “Girl Soldiers.”

They can “strip down an AK-47 Kalashnikov in the time it takes most kids to send an S.M.S.,” Mr. Kozmin said.

The young students attend the Moscow Female Cadet Boarding School No. 9 — which Mr. Kozmin calls “one of the elite military academies in Russia.” It is a state school, free to all who attend, though the competition to be admitted is intense.

Sergey Kozmin

In addition to standard subjects, the students study the basics of military service including marching, military strategy and marksmanship. The school’s curriculum also includes sewing, ballet and compulsory choir practice.

The school is strict. “No miniskirts or swear words, no smoking or drinking, and no hanging about unattended,” Mr. Kozmin said. “Mobile phone are also banned except for a few minutes a day to talk with parents.”

But Mr. Kozmin once indulged them, breaking a school rule against gum. “The girls saw that I was pulling chewing gum out of my pocket, and they were so excited, ran up to me and encircled me and asked to give them the whole package,” he said. “It’s one of the things they miss so much.”

Many of the girls come from military families and dream of careers serving Russia, whether in the army, the police force or the Federal Security Service. A museum inside the school celebrates famous Russian women, beginning with the era of the czars. The students want to be like them, Mr. Kozmin said, as well as other prominent Russian women like Alina Kabaeva, the Olympic medal-winning rhythmic gymnast and member of the Russian parliament.

“They want to improve the role of women in Russia,” said Mr. Kozmin, 32, of the students he has been photographing since October 2011.

His dedication to the project allows him to go seemingly unnoticed by his subjects. “It’s a part of my job,” he said. “But usually I like to spend more time with the people I photograph. Sometimes, I spend a whole day and the photos, I take in a few seconds. But it’s worth the waiting.”

Sergey Kozmin

Mr. Kozmin’s presence is unusually easy to forget when looking at these images, whether in a photo of a young woman gazing intently just past his camera, tying a braid in her hair, or in one that shows another student closing her eyes, dancing cheek-to-cheek with a young man at a winter ball. Or even leaping joyously in ballet class, presumably just over Mr. Kozmin’s head.

If any are aware of the photographer in their midst, they usually don’t show it.

Mr. Kozmin began as a cinematographer, studying at the Russian State Cinema School in Moscow. But he quit his studies to become a photojournalist. “I wanted to be independent,” he said. “It was more fun.”

Mr. Kozmin has realized that this story isn’t finished, and plans to add video and sound. He’d like to give the students themselves an opportunity to say “who they are, what they want and what they dream of.”

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