Russia holds abducted Ukrainian children in hundreds of camps and subjects them to ideological indoctrination - study
Kyiv • UNN
A Yale University report found that Russia is holding abducted Ukrainian children in over 200 locations where they are subjected to military training and "re-education." Ukrainian authorities estimate the number of deported children at nearly 20,000, of which only a small portion has been returned.
A Yale University report states that Russia is holding abducted Ukrainian children in over 200 locations across the country and in occupied territories. There, children are forced to undergo military training and "re-education" according to Kremlin standards. This is reported by the Financial Times, writes UNN.
Details
Russia has created a network of camps on its territory and in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory, where it holds Ukrainian children who were taken after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is stated in a new study by the Humanitarian Research Lab of the Yale School of Public Health.
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The report mentions 210 facilities – from children's camps and resorts to cadet schools, hospitals, and even a military base. It is there, according to researchers, that children from Ukraine are held.
Russia uses a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitories, capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for a long time.
Ukrainian authorities estimate that almost 20,000 children have been taken to the Russian Federation, and only a small portion have been returned home. At the same time, some children even ended up on Russian adoption announcement websites.
The study showed that in two-thirds of the identified locations, children are subjected to ideological processing. In addition, in 39 institutions, they are directly taught military skills and literally prepared for military actions in the future. Sometimes children are involved in working in camps where equipment for the Russian army is developed – from drones to mine detectors.
The network of locations, and it is indeed a network, is at least twice our maximum size. What is happening with the militarization of children is more organized and complex than we ever expected.
Most of these facilities, as researchers found, are subordinate to the Russian authorities – from the Ministry of Defense to departments managing the property of the President of the Russian Federation.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court already issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and another Russian official precisely because of the forced displacement of Ukrainian children.