Children in southern Russia who donned military uniforms and paraded in front of their parents and officials ahead of Victory Day have generated pride among local authorities and caused outrage elsewhere in Russia. The Pyatigorsk city administration boasted that around 500 preschoolers dressed as airborne troops, sailors and Soviet soldiers took part in the parade on Monday. Since-deleted footage showed some children as young as 6 armed with mockups of U.S.-made M16 rifles that the Soviet army had never used.

While officials who oversaw the parade said instilling “patriotic education” at a young age contributes to a “healthier society,” others were outraged by the display, saying that children shouldn’t be taught to glorify war. Tamara Pletneva, the head of the State Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children, stressed that kids should not be armed with weapons. “As for going out with flowers, that’s very good,” she was quoted by the Govorit Moskva radio station as saying. “I’m terribly saddened that May 9 turned into a kind of carnival in Russia,” Ksenia Chudinova, editor-in-chief of the Snob.ru magazine, said. “But what can you do? Russia has no other fun holidays.”