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Russia’s system to care for thousands of Ukrainian children Uprooted during the war includes “re-education camps” and forced Adoptions, US researchers said on Tuesday, calling it a sprawling operation being directed by the Kremlin’s highest levels.
According to a report by the Conflict Observatory, a State Department-backed initiative, Russia has housed at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in 43 camps and facilities stretching from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea region to, or near, Siberia and Russia’s Pacific coast new families are part of its “systematic, government-wide approach to the relocation, re-education, and in some cases adoption and forced adoption of Ukrainian children.”
They believe some of the actions of the Russian authorities could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Researchers said the main goal of the camps is “political re-education” by exposing children to “Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic” information. Two camps in Crimea and Chechnya appear to be giving children military training, teaching them about firearms and military vehicles.
Nathaniel Raymond, a researcher at the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory, told reporters that Russia has failed to take the steps required by the Geneva Conventions, including creating a transparent registration system for children separated from their families in wartime ; the transfer of children to a neutral nation; and steps to ensure they maintain their national and ethnic identity.
“Think of this report as a giant yellow alert that we are putting out on the children of Ukraine,” he said, referring to the US system for publishing news of missing or vulnerable children. “All levels of the Russian government are involved.”
66,000 war crimes were reported in Ukraine. It vows to prosecute them all.
The report adds to the growing picture of alleged Russian crimes during President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which began almost a year ago. The United States remains the main supporter of the Ukrainian government’s attempt to expel Russian forces and agencies from large areas of Ukraine, some of which have been under direct Kremlin control since 2014.
The report, which the researchers say reflects six months of documentation from a range of sources, including satellite imagery and Russian state media, claims that most of the Ukrainian children who were in Russian care came from Russian-held territories such as Donetsk and Luhansk, while a minority had been taken from Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia before these areas were reconquered by Ukrainian forces.
The report also describes what it calls a “consent crisis”. While some of the children’s parents agreed to go to a summer camp in Russia and they subsequently returned, the return of other children was delayed temporarily or indefinitely. In other cases, the researchers say, some Ukrainian parents may have been forced by pro-Russian authorities to allow their children to be taken to Russia.
In many cases, parents have found it difficult to obtain information about their children aged between 4 months and 17 years, the report said.
The researchers said there was no evidence that children subjected to military training in Russian camps were sent to fight. Some of the facilities appear to conform to the Soviet Union youth camp system.
Yale researcher Caitlin Howarth said that while some children have been returned to their families in Ukraine, the damage they suffered could last much longer.
“This level of so-called ‘re-education’ is a very clear and systematic attempt to erase the history and culture and in very clearly documented cases even the historical meaning and language of Ukraine,” she said.
The report also identifies Russian officials the authors claim are responsible for the practices, including Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights, and several regional governors.
Colleen Crenwelge of the State Department’s Conflict and Stabilization Office said the Biden administration is pursuing a number of avenues to hold Russian officials accountable for actions in Ukraine, but gave no details on how the alleged child re-education system did so would fit.
Understanding the Russia-Ukraine conflict
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