The Fifth All-Russian Homeroom Teachers' Forum opened in Moscow's "Russia National Center" on Oct.1, focusing on the prestige of the teaching profession, the role of parents, advances in science, new approaches to career guidance, and the increasing need for value-based education among other subjects.
A keynote speaker was Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of Russia's Kurchatov nuclear research institute and a close friend of President Vladimir Putin.
Kurchatov told the gathering of more than a thousand homeroom teachers and vocational education advisors, along with more than 300,000 viewers online, that the West was plotting to wipe out most of mankind, preserving only a small ruling elite.
Kovalchuk, 77, said the West has been promoting LGBTQ+ ideology combined with encouraging child-free families to reduce the number of people on earth.
He explained, "The West... understands that huge numbers of people are becoming unnecessary. They have begun to prepare for a population reduction," adding this was because robots would soon be able to work better and more effectively.
He said that the West's conspiracy "Is working brilliantly. In a generation or two, there'll be no continuation of their bloodlines. Only a small elite, the ones they actually need, will remain."
"As for the rest - they don't even see most people as human - they'll be eliminated with biological weapons. A virus or something like that with a 90 per cent mortality rate will come along and mow them down."
He told his audience that Russia's only friends "are the army and the navy."
Several commentators, including some who spoke to The Times, said Kovalchuk's notion was aligned with the kind of extreme conspiracy theories that seem to increasingly underpin the motives and ideology of the Kremlin and its dictatorial leader.
The Kremlin continues to forbid the promotion or even discussion of LGBT rights and has enacted legislation proscribing even the suggestion there is any benefit to leading a child-free lifestyle.
In 2024 Kovalchuk is said to have ordered Russian scientists to undertake research into anti-ageing remedies including 3D bioprinting technologies that could allow doctors to "print" organs and tissue. He also called for research into genetics, work that involves Putin's eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova who is an endocrinologist.
At the beginning of September during a "hot mic" incident Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin, who will be 73 on Tuesday, were caught discussing the possibility that organ transplants offered the prospect of immortality, according to the BBC.