Crimea is a place where Ukrainian children are being “reprogrammed”. How health camps “teach you to love” Russia
According to Ukraine’s representative to the OSCE, Russia has kidnapped 19,546 Ukrainian children. So far, 1,227 minors have been returned, more than half of whom have been returned to Ukraine by Save Ukraine volunteers. According to the organization’s founder, Nikolai Kuleba, Ukraine has lost half of its child population in the occupied territory since the occupation of Crimea in 2014.
"At 9 o'clock on October 7, 2022, we heard a loud banging on the door. I woke up, went to the door and asked: "Who is there?" They said to me: "Open the door, I'm still asleep, I open the door, and there are three soldiers standing there with pistols in their hands, and they say - I have to pack things, I have 30 minutes at the meeting and I have to go with them. I was confused, I didn't know what to say to my cat. I gathered some things, and started to in an unknown direction with these three soldiers", recalls Kherson resident Vladislav Rudenko.
This is how his story about "reprogramming" and getting to know the "Russian world" began. A sixteen-year-old boy from a large family was literally abducted by Russian soldiers and sent to the annexed Crimea, along with hundreds of other teenagers from the Kherson Naval College. Vlad performed in the health camp Druzba in Yevpatoria.
"First, we were told to leave everything Ukrainian, to not have anything Ukrainian, because there will be problems. I had a small Ukrainian flag then, but I didn't leave it," says Vladislav.
Only a month after the kidnapping, he managed to get a phone, call his mother and tell her something about himself. At that time, the Ukrainian armed forces liberated Kherson. But Vlad remained in the camp in Crimea, which is under Russian control.
"First of all, we woke up to the Russian national anthem. Second, we raised the Russian flag. Then we had exercises. After breakfast, we had an educational class: what happened the night before in Russia, news from Russia. And then we went to the cinema and watched Russian films," says Vlad about the re-education system in Crimea.
Vlad did not last long in this regime.
"I left, took off the Russian flag and hung up my underwear. After that, they searched for me for three days. We had the head of security Astakhov, and he found me. He came to me and said: "Pack your things, you are coming with us, we will put you in custody," says Vladislav.
According to Vlad, he ended up in a real punishment cell measuring two by three meters, with a toilet and a barred window. The guy protested, they gave him pills that he did not take, took him to the hospital for examination, said that he was dangerous to society and threatened to send him to a mental hospital. As a result, this minor resident of Kherson was transferred to another Crimean camp, in Luchistoye, not far from Alushta.
"This is the methodology that the Russian empire uses to quickly assimilate the population after the conquest of new territories, making them obedient to the regime. "So, Crimea, especially for children from the newly occupied territories, was a place of recreation, a kind of "reprogramming", where there are many camps. Some said that the camps had not been used or worked for a long time. There were rats, cockroaches in them, the children were without food, but the main thing was to fill the camps and start "re-education", that is, to see what needed to be done so that these children would submit to the regime as soon as possible, be ready to live in the Russian Federation and then send them to Russian families and boarding schools," explains the former Commissioner for Children's Rights of Ukraine Nikolay Kuleba.
After Crimea, Vlad was sent for “intensive re-education” to the occupied part of the Kherson region.
“Apparently, they recruited someone under pressure. This is a very large pro-Russian machine and it was very difficult. I had a situation when my mother was already near Lazurny, I wanted to tell my mother that there was no need for her to come - that's it, I'm staying,” Vladislav Rudenko recalls.
In general, this “recovery” of Vlad, organized by the “Russian world” in the sanatoriums of the annexed Crimea and the occupied Kherson region, lasted nine months. Until his mother managed to take her son from Lazurny, and then, with the help of the Save Ukraine organization, take him to the territory controlled by Ukraine. Here Vlad can practice boxing, which he has been doing since he was 12 years old and is studying. He plans to graduate from the Faculty of Physical Education and teach children boxing.