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Russia is running an extensive network of more than 200 camps to re-educate, Russify and militarise Ukrainian children, a new investigation has found.
The facilities, across Russia and occupied Ukraine, include camps as well as schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious sites and universities.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainian children have been taken to the sites and subjected to programmes that include patriotic indoctrination, combat drills, paratrooper training and even classes on how to assemble drones for the Russian armed forces.
The report – Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-Education and Militarization, by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health – found that at least 130 of the camps have been involved in re-education, including efforts to indoctrinate children with pro-Russia narratives.
It found at least 39 of the facilities operate militarisation programmes where children as young as eight are put through weapons training, grenade-throwing competitions and tactical medicine courses.
The findings follow a Guardian report last week in which children from occupied regions of Ukraine described being forcibly taken to such military-style camps and groomed to be ready to fight for Russia.
“What we have here is an unprecedented network of facilities, expressly built and expanded since 2014, to turn Ukrainian children into Russians,” said Nathaniel Raymond, director of the Humanitarian Research Lab. “It is a pipeline for Ukraine’s children to be re-educated – brainwashed – and turned into soldiers.”
Nearly a quarter of the sites show signs of expansion, suggesting Moscow is preparing to accommodate more children, and at least two more camps are under construction.
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Researchers gathered open-source evidence – often from Russia’s own publications – with high-resolution satellite imagery, corroborating the presence of children with at least five independent sources.
At least half of the locations documented were directly operated by the Russian government, evidenced through incorporation documents, said the report.
“We can see trench works, firing ranges, parade grounds. The only thing we don’t know is whether [Ukrainian children have] already been deployed in battle,” said Raymond, adding that they are yet to independently verify a conscription notice or battlefield death.
The report is the first to reveal the scale of Russia’s deportation network, adding weight to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It argues that the systematic deportation and militarisation of children violates the Geneva conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In 2023, the international criminal court launched an investigation into President Vladimir Putin and children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the alleged abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. Russia denies any wrongdoing, claiming that children have only been relocated for their safety and insisting that none have been forcibly taken.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine, said the Yale report “provides irrefutable evidence contradicting Russian denials and misinformation” and that it “demands action”.
