Now they are fighting against Ukraine: how children in occupied Luhansk are being trained to serve in Russia's armed forces

The smiling young woman in this photo is Anastasiia Safronova. Behind her are a shelf of Ukrainian language textbooks, a painted vase filled with pussy willow branches, and a notice in Ukrainian: "The lesson has begun – turn off your mobile phone." There’s also a remembrance journal [a personal tribute honouring someone killed in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Created by families or communities, they preserve photos, stories and memories – ed.]. The photo was taken before 2014, when Anastasiia was teaching Ukrainian language and literature to primary-school children in Luhansk. 

Anastasiia graduated from Taras Shevchenko National Pedagogical University in Luhansk with a degree in Primary Education: Ukrainian Language and Literature.

She would obviously have read Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar and the poetry of Vasyl Symonenko, and she would have known the life stories of those who led the struggle for Ukraine's statehood and cultural sovereignty.

But she had to renounce all that when Russian troops and illegal armed groups occupied her hometown. Prior to the occupation of Luhansk, there was no hint of any pro-Russian leanings in Anastasiia's social media accounts – only romantic pictures and captions, with one post in support of Zoria, a Luhansk-based football club.

Now Anastasiia's account is full of photos with Russian flags in the background and patriotic Russian slogans.

In 2015, Anastasiia enrolled in the same university to retrain as a Russian language teacher. A few years later, she would also become a history teacher. In 2021, she studied at the occupied university.

These days she expounds on the "greatness of the Russian world" and gives lectures on Peter the "Great". A journalist investigating Safronova found that she now teaches at the so-called "Republic Cossack Cadet Corps named after Air Marshal Alexander Yefimov". There’s no remembrance journal or Ukrainian language textbook in her office now – just as in any school there.

The choice that Safronova has made is classified as collaboration under Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

After the occupation of Luhansk, some local teachers joined a system that prepares children for war against Ukraine.

The journalist identified 14 teachers who work in an educational institution that the Russians established on the basis of a former Ukrainian lyceum, where teenagers are taught Russian history, trained for service in the Russian army, and taught how to operate UAVs and load weapons.

It’s all part of Russia's extensive campaign to militarise Ukrainian children in the occupied territories.

What is happening at the Luhansk Cossack Cadet Corps

Before the 2014 occupation, this institution was the Luhansk Oblast Lyceum for enhanced military and physical training for the Cadet Corps named after the Heroes of the Young Guard. After the occupation, the lyceum moved to Kreminna in Ukrainian-controlled Luhansk Oblast (now also under Russian occupation).

On the site of the former lyceum, the Russian authorities established the Republic Cossack Cadet Corps named after Air Marshal Alexander Yefimov, an academic institution where students under 18 are trained for military service in the occupation forces.

The students range from grades 5 to 11 [that is, from the age of 9-10 to 17 – ed.]. After they leave, many cadets join the civil service, enrol in military academies or enlist in the army, where they fight against Ukraine in the ranks of Russian Cossack units.

Representatives of Russian armed units were present at recent cadet corps open days, encouraging teenagers to join them after graduating.

A Russian media report on the cadet corps in April 2025 featured Daria from Luhansk, who was visiting the establishment with her son Sviatoslav. He was just finishing sixth grade at a middle school and wanted to become a cadet, his mother said.

"I believe that the sooner our boys understand what military service is, and what it means to defend their homeland in these difficult times, the better," Daria explained. "They will leave the corps prepared and trained in the most important thing – defending their land."

The director who has helped Russia train future military personnel

Some of the lyceum’s former teachers and staff who did not leave Luhansk in 2014 went to work for the Russians in the Cossack cadet corps.

Andrii Ustynskykh, for example, had worked as a Physical Education teacher at the lyceum. He accepted an offer from the occupation authorities to become the head of the logistics department of the Republic Cossack Cadet Corps. He was identified by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and criminal proceedings were brought against him.

Until 2022, Andrii Ustynskykh was the deputy director of the Cossack Cadet Corps, and in the spring of 2023, he became the director, a position he still holds today.

Ustynskykh has directly assisted the Russian Federation by organising training for armed forces personnel. As a leader, he incorporated the educational standards of the aggressor state into their training process.

In one interview, Ustynskykh asserted that the Luhansk Cossack Cadet Corps named after Air Marshal Yefimov "lays the foundation for the training of future defenders of the fatherland".

In February 2025, the Rivne City Court found Ustynskykh guilty of treason and collaboration. He was sentenced in absentia to 14 years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property and banned from holding positions in state bodies for 15 years.

Also in February, Ustynskykh was charged with another offence – violation of the customs of war. An investigation found that he promotes a positive attitude towards serving in the Russian occupation forces and with the Russian Cossacks among children.

In August 2023, Ustynskykh signed a cooperation agreement between his Cossack corps and Terek, a Russian Cossack brigade which is part of the Russian Armed Forces. By doing so, he demonstrated a positive attitude towards Russia's military formations, according to the latest notice of suspicion served on him.

In January 2024, he organised an event called "A Day in the Life of a Soldier"  for two boys, Matvii and Vladyslav, and presented them with military uniforms.

The Cossack Cadet Corps also offers UAV training, holds meetings with Russian combatants, conducts military parades, and arranges various other activities that prepare cadets for service in the occupying forces.

In one interview, the director of the corps emphasised that the cadets don’t just take part in various events – they also fight against Ukraine. Cadets go on to serve in various Russian military structures and also study at higher military academies.

"About 50 cadets graduate every year. The goal of the cadet corps is to train future defenders of our homeland. Cadets undergo training so that they can then enter higher military academies and become worthy defenders of their country," he said.

Deputy director for education: "The children have no free time"

On 31 May 2024, the graduating cadets assembled in the courtyard of the Republic Cossack Corps. At the centre of the solemn gathering stood several cadets with a young red-haired woman, who broke into song.

Microphone in hand, the woman sang passionately:

"The dawn lit up the road
Towards a foreign land.
The Cossack holds worry in his heart
For his beloved homeland.
Forgive me, my darling,
If I don't keep myself safe!

I don’t know where I’ll die,
Where I’ll lay down my head and lie."

This woman is Anzhelika Bova, the Deputy Director for Education at the Cadet Corps. In a recent interview with Russian journalists, Bova explained that the cadet corps' core curriculum consists of combat and physical training, as well as military theory.

"The main thing is to keep the children busy 24 hours a day; they have no free time. They study in the morning, then they have supplementary education – extracurricular activities. We offer a very wide range of sports, ranging from army hand-to-hand combat to volleyball, basketball and football," Bova told the Russian journalists.

Anzhelika Bova is Ukrainian – a resident of Luhansk who also studied at Shevchenko Pedagogical University. In one interview, she revealed that she is a fifth-generation teacher, the latest in a long line from her great-great-grandmother to her mother. In fact, she said, her mother taught Russian in Ukraine’s west.

Bova, who previously taught humanities, claims to be an active public figure. One educational resource states that in 2020, Bova presented a video lecture on political ideology, movements and parties.

Besides Bova, Ustinskikh and Safronova, the other teachers that the journalist identified at the Yefimov Republic Cossack Cadet Corps are: Dmytro Kovalenko, Nataliia Lahno (Ostapenko), Oleksandr Klymenkov, Vitalii Marynovskyi, Olena Ustynskykh, Liudmyla Nieskrieba, Oleksandr Ivanov, Ihor Cherepov, Ihor Miroshnyk and Andrii Patrichnyi (pictured below).

"Russia is not just radicalising children. It’s planting thoughts of war in their minds"

Russia is actively developing a network of institutions with the objective of militarising Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories. Although the concept of militarisation is not formally defined by international legal treaties, it has been the reality under occupation for 11 years.

This isn’t just well-known militarised movements like the Young Army (Yunarmiya) and the Movement of the First (Dvizhenie Pervykh). Now, Ukrainian children are being trained to become Russian soldiers in ordinary educational institutions like the cadet corps.

Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer at the Regional Human Rights Centre, says cadet corps began being established in occupied Luhansk Oblast in 2015. There are currently three Cossack cadet corps operating in Luhansk Oblast – in Alchevsk, Luhansk and Starobilsk.

According to Rashevska, there are 40 Cossack cadet classes operating in 30 schools, along with three police cadet classes, three Investigative Committee cadet classes, six Emergency Ministry cadet classes, and nine Russian Guard cadet classes.

"I’ve observed a disturbing trend – Luhansk is becoming a kind of hub for luring children from newly occupied territories. For instance, cadets from Luhansk-based corps or Investigative Committee classes often travel to Kherson and encourage children to move first to occupied Luhansk and then further into the Russian Federation," Rashevska explains.

Human rights advocates have repeatedly documented how militarised and indoctrinated children become agents of Russian propaganda, with children from newly occupied territories being particularly targeted, she adds. Children who complete these militarised programmes are often pushed to join the so-called "special military operation" – to fight in the war against Ukraine. If they survive, they are expected to train the next generation.

This is confirmed in Russian media reports: "The sons of a participant in the ‘special military operation’ have enrolled in the Republic Cossack Cadet Corps." Viktor Vodolatsky, a deputy in Russia’s State Duma, visited the corps to meet 12-year-old Oleksandr and 14-year-old Vladyslav. The boys were in a "difficult life situation": their father had been raising them alone, but after his brother was killed in the war against Ukraine, he joined the Russian army.

"I spoke with the boys and told them that they'll gain basic military training, and if they study well, they will follow in their father’s footsteps and become true defenders of their Motherland," Vodolatsky said.

Kateryna Rashevska says the situation in occupied Luhansk is worse than in the newly occupied territories. Territories that have been under Russian control since 2014 have already been adapted to the Russian education system, including military service propaganda, and this will only intensify.

"What is the Russian Federation doing? They aren’t just radicalising children, putting these ideas about war into their minds. They’ve made it state policy – and this is no exaggeration," Rashevska says. "This policy isn’t hard to identify: look at Putin’s decrees, his youth policy, his strategy for combating terrorism and extremism, or the draft law to standardise youth camp programmes, all emphasising military-patriotic elements."

The lawyer explained that the Geneva Convention clearly prohibits propaganda regarding military service in the forces of an occupying power. Under international humanitarian law, education must be provided in accordance with children’s cultural and linguistic traditions, as it was before the occupation. Similarly, the Hague Convention prohibits any coercion to show loyalty to an occupying power.

"There are a number of violations here," says Rashevska. "But the problem is that none of them reach the threshold required for an international crime. Propaganda regarding service in the occupying forces, the rolling out of Russian standards, even the recruitment of children into militarised associations – these are not classed as war crimes. It’s only a war crime to make children take part in, or recruit them into, active combat operations, and the Russians don’t do that. They wait until they turn 18 and then force them to sign a contract either by conscription or by coercion, particularly through propaganda."

Rashevska is confident that it will be possible to convince international organisations such as the International Criminal Court to recognise such militarisation as an international war crime. At a meeting with ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan last year, human rights activists agreed that militarisation causes children mental trauma and can be deemed inhumane treatment of civilians.

"Both crimes are simultaneously war crimes and crimes against humanity," explains Rashevska. "Or this could be designated as discriminatory persecution. Russia is actually attacking Ukrainian children in the occupied territories by turning them into Russian patriots when under international humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, they should treat them as foreign citizens and leave them alone."

Similarly, Rashevska believes that imposing sanctions on individuals who are involved in the militarisation and indoctrination of children could also influence Russia.

"It could slow down the process and show some parents that such activity is illegal and potentially harmful to their children," she says. "Some say they were not forced to join the Young Army. But others say they were. They were told: ‘Choose one of the movements and join, or you’ll have problems.’"

The Republic Cossack Cadet Corps is currently competing in an all-Russian corps contest and has made it into the final ten. One Russian news report said of them: "Over 90% of graduates of the Cossack Cadet Corps enrol in military higher education institutions or academies run by the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian Guard. They commit their lives to serving Russia."

During the years of occupation, the education system has taken on a military character. Former Ukrainian teachers have become part of the Russian education system, which instils a cult of war and service to the aggressor state in children's minds.

Today these children are wearing Russian uniforms in cadet classes and learning how to assemble automatic weapons. Tomorrow they could be on the front line, fighting in a war against the land of their birth.

This piece was prepared in collaboration with The Reckoning Project, a global team of journalists and lawyers dedicated to documenting, reporting, and collecting evidence for the investigation of war crimes.

Author: Yuliia Khymeryk
Translation: Myroslava Zavadska and Yelyzaveta Khodatska 
Editing: Charlotte Guillou-Clerc and Teresa Pearce