Thousands of Ukrainian children held in Russia targeted for 're-education': Yale study

A large network of camps being operated by the federal government in Russia has held at least 6,000 children from the war-ravaged Ukraine, a study by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) has revealed. At least 43 such facilities and their locations have been identified, as per the findings. ‘Re-education,’ an effort to ostensibly make children more pro-Russia in their personal and political views, has been counted among the purposes of the network. The facilities have been located in Crimea, and mainland Russia apart from installations found in Siberia and along Russia’s far eastern Pacific coast.

The transport of the kids started before Moscow launched a full-scale invasion in February last year. "These first transports of children in early February 2022 included a group of 500 purported orphans ‘evacuated’ from Donetsk oblast by Russia," the report states. These efforts were linked to the apparent threat of an offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces in the rebel-dominated regions of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).

The children are believed to be staying in the state-operated facilities over the past year. Segmented into four categories, children deemed orphans, those who were under the care of the Ukrainian state institutions before the war began, whose custody is unclear amid the conflict, and those who have clear familial guardianship are found to be staying in these facilities.

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While those who have clear guardianship have been targeted for "re-education", children - deemed orphans - have been targeted for
"deportation to the Russian territory or for adoption or foster care", the study claims. "At least 32 (78 per cent) of the camps identified by Yale HRL appear engaged in systematic re-education efforts that expose children from Ukraine to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and/or military education," the HRL study underlines. "Multiple camps endorsed by the Russian Federation are advertised as 'integration programs', with the apparent goal of integrating children from Ukraine into the Russian government’s vision of national culture, history, and society," it further stresses.

In 10 per cent of these camps, the return of children to Ukraine was allegedly delayed. Some parents have been reported as saying that they were unable to get information about their children.

The program involves every level of the Russian government, according to the Yale investigation, which stresses that "dozens of federal, regional, and local figures (are) directly engaged in operating and politically justifying the program". Medical care of the children in the war-torn country has also been cited as one of the reasons for the transport.

“Giving (Ukraine’s children Russian) nationality or having them adopted goes against the fundamental principles of child protection in situations of war. This is something that is happening in Russia and must not happen," Filippo Grande, UN High Commissioner for Refugees,

The issue was raised last year by officials at the United Nations. In June, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, told the Security Council that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was investigating alleged plans for the forcible deportation of Ukraine’s children to Russia, “which do not appear to include steps for
family reunification".

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