OPINION: Is Putin Creating His Own Janissary Army From Abducted Ukrainian Children?

The network of camps stretches from Crimea, occupied southern and eastern Ukraine, through mainland Russia and as far as Siberia’s Novosibirsk region – almost 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) from Ukraine.

At least six of these camps are run by Russia’s “Yunarmiya” (Youth army) that exposes the children to anti-Ukrainian propaganda, dresses them in quasi-military uniforms, marches them in military formations and subjects them to daily training in the use of firearms, military skills and tactics and Russia’s version of history.

Mozhem Obyasnit, a Russian opposition news outlet funded by exiled businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reported in April that funding for Yunarmiya in 2025 had doubled to 1 billion rubles ($12.9 million) – the highest total ever. 

As Kyiv Post reported on May 25, Russia maintains that the Ukrainian members of the organization are volunteers even when evidence suggests otherwise.

Ashley Jordana, Hala’s director of law, policy, and human rights, said that when they come of age, many of these children will likely be conscripted into the Russian military, citing testimony from some of the almost 130 children rescued by Save Ukraine and other similar groups since the summer of 2024.

The activity within these camps is redolent of the strategy undertaken by the Ottoman Empire to create its Janissary (New Soldier) army between the 14th and 17th centuries.

The Janissaries were an elite corps manned through the so-called “devşirme” system whereby the empire enforced a levy on the countries they had conquered, chiefly the Balkans, as well as parts of Eastern Europe, including Crimea and parts of what is now Ukraine, to serve in the military.

These captives, who became the model for George RR Martin’s “Unsullied” slave army in his “Game of Thrones” novels, were Christian boys who were forcibly converted to the Islamic faith and trained in military skills. 

They are said to have been the first standing army to have used firearms and were feared because of their ferocity, internal organization and discipline and utter loyalty to their Ottoman masters. They were often used as spies and saboteurs because they were European in appearance and could pass unnoticed into enemy areas.

It takes only a short leap of imagination to suggest that the Janissary concept is the reason for the setting up of such camps – Russian President Vladimir Putin is a self-proclaimed historical scholar to whom this militaristic perspective would appeal.

His war against Ukraine has shown that while he is reluctant to expend ethnic Russian lives, he has no compunction in sending those from the 190 racial groups that form its population – why would he hold back on using a few thousand Ukrainians in the future?

The forced deportation of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, which is considered a war crime, has already led to the issuing of International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s “commissioner for children’s rights.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023 that Russia’s treatment of his country’s children was “clearly an act of genocide.”

Hala says it has passed its dossier to Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement as well as the ICC in the Hague. Much of its findings match and supplement the evidence compiled by Yale University’s School of Medicine’s research into Russia’s program of coerced adoption and fostering of Ukraine’s children. The research lost US government funding earlier this year.

"How many Ukrainian children are still in Russia? Where are they? What happened to them? Are they safe? How many of them need to escape?” said Mykola Kuleba, head of Save Ukraine. 

“This is a war for our children.”