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By Sean Rayment
Kidnapped children have been taken to at least 210 facilities in Russia and areas of Ukraine under Moscow’s control, as part of a Kremlin effort to secure their loyalty to President Putin, a report has said.
The facilities span 3,500 miles, from the Black Sea to Siberia and the Pacific coast, according to research by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).
Researchers accused Moscow of operating a “potentially unprecedented” system of “re-education” and forced military training for Ukrainian children. The report also said that children are being made to produce drones and other military equipment for Russia’s army. Ukraine estimates that Russia has abducted around 20,000 children since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The facilities include military cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, a hotel, family support centres and orphanages. Most frequently, they are camps and sanatoria, HRL said, citing open-source information and satellite imagery. More than half of the facilities are directly managed by the Russian government, according to the report.
HRL said the network formed part of Moscow’s broader attempt to “Russify” the population in occupied Ukrainian territories.
“[Russia] explicitly targets children, especially those in vulnerable categories such as orphans and those living close to the front line,” it said. Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian children was “likely to leave generational scars”, the report warned.
Re-education programmes involving “cultural, patriotic or military programming that aligns with pro-Russia narratives” have taken place at 130 sites. Almost 40 facilities, including specially built “Warrior” training camps, have been used to “militarise” Ukrainian children, according to HRL.
Children are reported to have taken part in shooting and grenade-throwing competitions, and to have received firearms, drone and tactics training. The report could not confirm whether any children who underwent Russian military training had been deployed to fight against Ukrainian forces.
The children arrived in Russia or Russian-occupied territory through a variety of routes, HRL said. Some were forcibly removed from their parents by Kremlin-loyal officials or troops during the early months of the war, while others were taken from Ukrainian state care homes.
Some parents sent their children to Russian-run summer camps that were meant to last only a few weeks. Certain children have since been returned to Ukraine, but only “after undergoing re-education”.
President Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Kremlin’s top official for children’s rights, have been charged by the International Criminal Court with the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Kyiv says Moscow is attempting to erase the children’s Ukrainian identity and insists their return will be a condition in any future ceasefire or peace deal. Moscow denies kidnapping children, claiming instead that they were “rescued” from war zones by Russian troops after the invasion began.