Ukrainian children forced into weapons training and tortured by Russia
Nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred to Russia since Vladimir Putin’s invasion in 2022, and subjected to military training, sexual violence and detention in camps, according to a new report.
The report, based on 200 documented cases of recently returned children and young people, found that 41 per cent were forced to take part in weapons training or join paramilitary youth movements such as Yunarmiya.
Another 39 per cent experienced forced displacement to far-flung locations in Russia, Crimea or Belarus, with 17 per cent detained in filtration camps or police stations and 10 per cent subjected to torture or cruel treatment.
Evidence compiled by War Child UK and Save Ukraine has found that Putin’s most likely long-term goal is to encourage or coerce Ukrainian children into their armed forces, and to participate in combat against their own country.
The Foreign Office announced on Wednesday that eight individuals and three organisations would be sanctioned over their involvement in the deportations, described by the then foreign secretary David Lammy as “despicable”.
Speaking to psychologists, six per cent of children reported experiencing or witnessing conflict-related sexual violence, while included threats of rape, forced undressing and testimonies that minor girls have been raped by supervisors in camps.
For 17-year-old Kseniia, the Russian occupation of her hometown Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region meant that she and her 10-year-old brother Serhii were forced to be separated for the first time.
Both orphans, Serhii was taken to the ‘Medvezhonok’ children’s camp in Russia, while Kseniia was pressured into attending a state-mandated trade school in a border town.
Her lessons were designed to erase Ukrainian identity, while her brother was eventually placed with a Russian foster family who informed him that his country had been destroyed, and that his sister had abandoned him.
Similar to the experiences of other Ukrainian children, he was bullied and humiliated by teachers in school, and gradually stopped sending desperate messages begging for help to Kseniia.
“Every Monday, we would have mandatory lessons and sing the Russian national anthem, I didn’t want to sing it,” she told The Independent. “After this anthem, they would also lift the flag and it would be a big ceremony and we would have lessons about telling us Russia is the best country in the world, it’s a paradise on earth.
“Russia was good, Ukraine was bad, if they hadn’t attacked Ukraine would have attacked Russia, Ukrainians were planning it, that all of this is orchestrated by the West and Russia is fighting the West.”
The report has found that 55 per cent of abducted children were subjected to pro-Russian indoctrination, including bans on the Ukrainian language and revised history lessons.
In several cases, children have been offered better grades or manipulated into believing they are less likely to receive military draft papers if they join paramilitary groups.
