How Russia Uses Ukrainian Children to Bolster Occupation and Wage a Protracted War

Over 20,000 Confirmed Cases of Deportation and 1.6 Million Children Under Occupation

About an hour after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the city of Murmansk in Russia's Arctic northwest celebrated its annual regional holiday with an event for children. Standing alongside the sons and daughters of Russian soldiers were children who had been taken from the occupied Prymorskyi district of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukrainian authorities have confirmed 20,651 cases of the deportation or forced transfer of children to Russia and Belarus since 2022. Some estimates, including figures provided by Russian officials themselves, place the number as high as 744,000. As of September 2026, only 2,644 Ukrainian children had been returned.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for their roles in this campaign.

However, the "Where Are Our People?" project—with which we collaborate—has identified at least 47 Russian and Belarusian citizens directly involved in the deportations. These individuals range from regional governors to business executives. Only a few of them are subject to Western sanctions. My work, conducted alongside colleagues from King's College London, involves tracking the fate of deported Ukrainian children using regional government documents and social media posts by Russian officials. Our findings indicate that the deportation of children is not merely a byproduct of the war but is systematic in nature and serves as an instrument of occupation.

In the short term, the deportation of children grants control over families in occupied Ukraine. Children are removed from occupied territories under the guise of "rehabilitation" or "recreation" to take them away from active conflict zones. They are then relocated thousands of kilometers away to Siberia, the Arctic, or the Russian Far East.

Their personal details are not made public, and some children are placed with Russian families. For parents remaining in occupied cities like Melitopol or Mariupol, ensuring the possibility of their children's return means complying with the demands of Russian authorities on their terms.

Russia's long-term goal is to ensure that the next generation of Ukrainians from the occupied territories does not identify as Ukrainian at all. Staff at the Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab have mapped 210 institutions across Russia where deported Ukrainian children are held and subjected to re-education or militarization.

This harmful impact will outlast any ceasefire. Researchers note that deported children who eventually return to Ukraine face a "dual adaptation" process—not merely resuming their pre-war lives, but re-evaluating them. They must adjust to a new environment while simultaneously rebuilding an identity that had been suppressed for years. There is no unified state program in Ukraine to support these population groups.

Military Reserves

Children remaining in occupied Ukraine are also subjected to re-education and militarization. Approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children currently live in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine; at least 582,000 of them are of school age.

These children are educated according to Russian standards. Mandatory weekly classes titled "Conversations about Important Things" began in 2022 in schools across the occupied territories. The Russian Ministry of Education defines the "important things" discussed in these sessions.

In occupied Zaporizhzhia, students are taught during these classes how the region was liberated from the Nazis during World War II and are told about the alleged "return of Nazism" to Ukraine following 2014, when the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power in Kyiv. The lessons portray the invasion of Ukraine as a second liberation. Children who have left occupied territory speak of teachers who praise Russia's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine, show films glorifying the war, invite Russian soldiers to their classes, and urge students to be ready to defend "the family."

In Russia, "Conversations about Important Things" lessons are designed to strengthen loyalty to the state. In occupied Ukraine, they serve a different purpose: to replace the children's Ukrainian identity with a Russian one.

Primary school students in occupied Ukraine are also participating in "Orlyata Rossii" (Eaglets of Russia). This is the youth wing of the Kremlin’s "Movement of the First" for Russian children—a revival of the Soviet-era "Little Octobrists"—which provides children with military training, such as assembling weapons and piloting drones.

In occupied Zaporizhzhia alone, the program has over 10,000 participants across 97 schools. Children are ceremonially inducted as "Eaglets," and the results can be startling.

One Ukrainian girl, deported from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in 2022 and enrolled in the program at a school near Moscow, was photographed shortly thereafter beside boxes of humanitarian aid collected for Russian soldiers fighting against her own country.

Tens of thousands of young people from occupied Ukraine have also been enrolled in *Yunarmiya* ("Young Army"), which was established with the support of the Russian military in 2015 and currently boasts over two million members. The organization teaches children and teenagers the basics of military skills and physical training while also providing patriotic indoctrination.

There is nothing new in this. The Ukrainian region of Crimea, officially annexed by Russia in 2014, served as the testing ground for this system. The total number of cadet classes in schools across occupied Crimea rose from 12 in the 2016–2017 academic year to 260 in the 2024–2025 academic year. ...pointing to the systematic militarization of the educational landscape.

Children living in Russia or in occupied Ukrainian territory are taught that Ukraine is the enemy and become soldiers sent to fight against Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials claim that between February 2022 and July 2025, Russia mobilized more than 46,000 residents of occupied territories into its army. In occupied Donetsk alone, more than 3,500 students were mobilized during the first year of the full-scale war, and 70 of them were killed.