Inna Andalitskaya17:50, 03/26/24

Russia is preparing Ukrainian children under occupation and deportation for war.

The Russian Federation has established a large-scale system of “militarization” of stolen Ukrainian children and is preparing them for war, including for participation in further aggression against Ukraine.

This was discussed at a press conference at Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform with the participation of representatives of a number of non-governmental organizations that deal with this issue.

In particular, the advocacy manager of the Where Are Our People? Kristina Shkudor noted that the Russian Federation does not want to return Ukrainian children, it neutralizes international legislation, and there is no way to force it to do this.

“Ukraine will be able to return all Ukrainians deported by Russia – both adults and children, only on one condition: if they win the war on the battlefield. Since there is no desired victory yet, we are looking for other methods. We understand perfectly well that Russia is deporting all children – from newborns to 16-18 years old, and if children aged 11+ already know who they are, then children newborns and up to 10 years old – they can be “brainwashed” and told what they should think about themselves,” Shkudor noted.

At the same time, she emphasized that Ukrainian children who are deported have their birth certificates changed. That is, they are made citizens of the Russian Federation, handed over for illegal adoption, and then it becomes simply impossible to find such a child.

Shkudor recalled that, according to the UN, Russia deported 2.8 million Ukrainians during the period of the full-scale invasion.

“Among them, we know the names of less than 20 thousand children who were deported. Only 386 were returned to Ukraine from deportation. According to the representative of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Gerasimchuk, the number of deported children is somewhere around almost 250 thousand. But we don’t know any of them names, nor about their fate. The Russian Federation simply does not provide this data. The Russian Federation claims 744 thousand deported children…”, Shkudor noted.

According to her, in order to find all these children, you need to get to the archives of the Russian Federation, where there is information about what the child was called before, what his name is now, and who adopted him.

“Then the chain can be tracked. Now there is no such possibility,” Shkudor noted.

At the same time, she emphasized that time is against Ukraine, since the aggressor country is actively working with deported Ukrainian children, erasing their national identification with strong propaganda. Both in the occupied territories and in those exported to the Russian Federation, our children are “processed” starting from the age of 4-5 years. This happens in kindergartens and schools, and corresponding work is organized in out-of-school education. That is, children are constantly under the influence of Russian propaganda.

According to Shkudor, they are all being prepared for the army in order to later join the Russian army. Direct practice is provided in so-called “summer camps”, which actually have nothing to do with health.

In turn, the chairman of the board of the Crimean Human Rights Group, Olga Skripnik, noted that it was in the occupied Crimea that Russia began to build this system of “militarization” of children. But now all this is happening at a very fast pace and on a large scale in the newly occupied territories.

“These are not just the actions of an aggressor country. This is a specific international crime. Today we are talking primarily about crimes such as propaganda among children for service in the Russian army. This is prohibited by the Geneva Convention – Article Four, because an aggressor state, occupying a state , has no right to carry out such propaganda among children. Moreover, if we consider Crimea, it is important to say that propaganda, which extends to children all 10 years old, is essentially a means of committing a specific war crime. And this war crime is coercion to serve. … How massive this propaganda is is shown by the system that we investigated and brought to the International Criminal Court. We proved that the system is indeed purposeful and created by the Russian Federation for the militarization of children, so that later, during a full-scale war against us, these children would become mobilization resource,” Skripnik stated.

She explained that Russians create a reality for children, which shows them that they must die “for Russia.” Large amounts of money are allocated for special “patriotic” programs, particularly in Crimea. Even the church was involved in the process of “militarization” of children – religious events were held under the control of the occupation authorities… For example, the “dedication” of a rocket, which is then used to bomb Ukraine. Religious camps for “scout-pathfinders” are being opened.

At the press conference, it was noted that large-scale movements have been created in Russia such as “Youth Army”, “Movement of the First”, “Young Guard”, as well as private “circles” and other structures, where the “militarization” of Ukrainian children also occurs.

“Imagine: a child at school – propaganda, a child in sports – propaganda, a child in religion – propaganda, a child goes outside – there are Russian tanks with some kind of exhibition, there is someone else marching somewhere. This is just total everyday propaganda and it is being waged in a very aggressive form… Russia itself has admitted that it will wage a long-term war with us… It needs human resources. And it will first of all make it from our occupied territories, from our children. Therefore, this is really scary a large-scale international crime, for which there must definitely be accountability. And we must stop this now. Because children, firstly, are simply dying from occupation, shelling, and after a while they will die as part of the Russian army,” Skripnik emphasized .

Representatives of the organizations noted the need to hold accountable not only the top leadership of the Russian Federation, but also the perpetrators up to the level of teachers and educators for this crime. Also, Russian propagandists who simultaneously incite the genocide of Ukrainians should not escape responsibility.

According to the head of the Almenda Center for Civic Education, Maria Sulyalina, more than 1.5 million children now live in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and of these children, 615 thousand are school-age children.

Representatives of Ukraine created a petition calling on the UN to facilitate the return of deported Ukrainian children. This petition, according to Shkudor, must receive 100 thousand votes by June 1, after which the UN will begin considering it.

(C)UNIAN 2024