Report: Over 19,500 Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia for "re-education"
A vast network of at least 210 institutions of various types has been created in Russia and in the Ukrainian territories it occupies to indoctrinate and militarize children illegally taken from Ukraine.
This is according to a report by the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab, as reported by BBC News.
The children are reportedly held in camps, sanatoriums, orphanages, cadet schools, general schools, medical facilities, military bases, church and monastery shelters, as well as hotels, according to Deutsche Welle, which reviewed the report's text.
In most of these centers, the researchers claim, children from Ukraine are subjected to "re-education" and are involved in various forced militarisation programmes. These include basic military training, ceremonial parades with a military character, drone assembly, the study of military history, and more.
Ukrainian authorities state that Russia has illegally deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In June, Yale estimated the figure could be closer to 35,000.
In February 2023, Ukraine's Ministry of Reintegration reported that Kyiv authorities had managed to bring home around 400 children abducted by Russia.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova and President Vladimir Putin in connection with the abduction of Ukrainian children. Russia denounced the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Translation by Iurie Tataru
