Fuck Putler

Fact Sheet: Russia’s Kidnapping and Re-education of Ukraine’s Children – [from March 2025]

• Yale HRL [Humanitarian Research Lab] has identified more than 8,400 children from Ukraine who have been systematically relocated to at least 57 facilities––including 13 facilities in Belarus and 43 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied territory.

• Russia targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.

• There are documented cases in which children were physically abused, denied communication with their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care after being taken to Russia.

• Russia has refused to give Ukrainian authorities a list of children taken to Russia––as required by international law––and has engaged in various activities to conceal their forced deportation and illegal adoption of children from Ukraine.

• The** kidnapping and indoctrination, including military training, of children from Ukraine was ordered by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin** and executed by Russia’s federal, regional, and occupation officials. Russia’s security services and criminal investigative agency systematically targeted vulnerable groups of children and transported them to Russia, where regional officials subjected them to re-education and listed children for adoption. Russia’s Investigative Committee has set recruitment quotas and designated a cadet school for children from Ukraine, creating a direct pipeline into federal security service.

• Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the forced deportation of Ukraine’s children.

• Hundreds of children––including those with families––were taken from Ukraine and illegally placed for adoption in Russia or placed in Russian families. In at least one case, Russia’s government re-issued the child’s birth certificate, changing the child’s name and place of birth. Such changes in personal information present significant barriers to identifying the child for return.

Addition:

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly just issued a report yesterday (30 June) urging governments to act on the deportation and Russification of Ukrainian children (the report is here as pdf).

TLDR:

• Albeit less overtly violent, these crimes consist of the erasure of Ukrainian identity and militarization of children who are forced not only to endure a brutal war of aggression during those formative childhood years, but to have Russian imperialism, aided by Belarus and North Korea, kill their parents, siblings, relatives, friends, language, culture and home. Because of Putin’s war, these children are being robbed of their identity.
• Sources on the number of Ukrainian children that have been forcibly deported to Russia vary: 19,546 have been confirmed by Ukraine, while the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab places the number closer to 35,000. Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights (wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court) has claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been “relocated” to Russia, while her Ukrainian counterpart, Daria Herasymchuk, estimates the true number to be between 200,000—300,000. Russia has consistently refused to provide Ukraine or other international parties with any records of transferred children, in violation of international law.
• The experiences of these deported children vary, but many are forced to undergo intense efforts to erase their Ukrainian identity. Children are subjected to Russification and militarization, including being forced to speak Russian, sing the Russian national anthem, participate in military marches and handle firearms. Moreover, the few children that have returned from these camps demonstrate signs of having been psychologically and physically abused and of the resulting trauma, including unquestioning obedience of adults and fear of using the Ukrainian language.
• Adding to the difficulty is the fact that many children have had their birth records and names changed to appear Russian, and the fact that some children were deported at such a young age that they might not remember their origin and home in Ukraine. Most importantly, the Russian Federation needs to agree to return the children – if not, it will be practically impossible, even if the children are identified and located.

The report makes a range of recommendations to address this nightmare.

This is genocide btw. And it makes me feel worse than all the shooting and killing. Whoever is complicit in this, whoever “just followed orders” any step along the way of abducting kids from their families and forcefully supplanting them, I want to see them rot in hell.

Xi Jinping 🤝 Putin

Kidnapping people into “camps” to wipe away their culture and indoctrinate them.

Russia is definitely not the country that has any right of taking in these children, as the aggressor and the sole reason for their misplacement. But from what I can tell, it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. There are ordinary, non-military non-political people there who wish these kids well, who have their head on top of their body. At the very least are attempting to teach love and not hatred, which is arguably much more constructive in the long term, regardless of what side you’re on. Though a love for “your nation” and “your government” can be shoved up a certain place regardless of what country is in the talks.

Good on the anonymous child psychologist who try and treat their early development of PTSD though, when there are things like this happening:

“When the children were on a boat on the Neva River and heard the cannon fired from the Peter and Paul Fortress, they dropped flat on the deck, face down — no one had warned them it was just a ceremonial shot,” the psychologist recalled.

I still wish to believe in the good people that are not corrupted by the government and politicians (yet?).

Who knows though, it might all be smoke and mirrors to avoid further persecution of the atrocities that were committed in the first place.

Also, I’d love to get the source for this (couldn’t find it skimming through VK):

A few days later, on Russia Day, counselors asked the children, “What does Russia mean to you?” and filmed their answers.