We’ve been seeing repeated reports of this kind of thing from the Ukrainian side throughout this campaign.
[CNN] The Russian government is operating an expansive network of dozens of camps where it has held thousands of Ukrainian children since the start of the war against Ukraine last year, according to a new report released Tuesday.The report contains disturbing new details about the extent of Moscow’s efforts to relocate, re-educate, and sometimes militarily train or forcibly adopt out Ukrainian children — actions that constitute war crimes and could provide evidence that Russia’s actions amount to genocide, it said.
The report was produced as a part of the work of the US State Department-backed Conflict Observatory by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. The Observatory was established last year to gather evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
"All levels of Russia’s government are involved," Yale Humanitarian Research Lab’s Nathaniel Raymond told reporters Tuesday.
"Consider this report a gigantic Amber Alert that we are issuing on Ukraine’s children," he said.
The report found that found that more than 6,000 children — ranging in age from mere months old to 17 — have been in Russian custody at some point during the course of the nearly year-long war, although the "total number of children is not known and is likely significantly higher than 6,000."
It identified 43 facilities that are a part of the network, which "stretches from one end of Russia to the other," including Russian-occupied Crimea, the "eastern Pacific Coast — closer to Alaska than it is to Moscow," and Siberia, Raymond said.
"The primary purpose of the camps appears to be political reeducation," he said, noting that at least 32 of the facilities identified in the report "appear to be engaged in systematic re-education efforts that expose children from Ukraine to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and in two cases, specifically military education."
The report found that “many children taken to camps are sent with the consent of their parents for an agreed duration of days or weeks and returned to their parents as originally scheduled,” but noted that “in many cases, the ability of parents to provide meaningful consent may be considered doubtful, as the conditions of war and implicit threat from occupying forces represent conditions of duress.”
“Other children have been held for months at these camps, including hundreds of children whose status is unknown; at the time of this report, it is unclear if they have been returned to their families. This report has identified two camps where children’s scheduled return date has been delayed by weeks. At two other camps identified, children’s returns have been indefinitely postponed,” it stated.
Still other children were deemed to be “orphans” and placed with Russian families.
| The Times of Israel adds: |
Ukraine’s government recently said that more than 14,700 children have been deported to Russia where some have been sexually exploited.
The US report, which relied on satellite imagery and public accounts, said that at least 6,000 children have been sent to camps but that the number is "likely significantly higher."
Russia has cast the effort as saving orphans or bringing children for medical care. Some parents were pressured to give consent to send away their children, sometimes with hopes they would return, the report said.
It said that Russian authorities have sought to provide a pro-Moscow viewpoint to children through school curricula as well as through field trips to patriotic sites and talks from veterans.
Children have also been given training in firearms, although Raymond said there was no evidence they were being sent back to fight.
Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, with Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...denying the historical legitimacy of the neighboring country and in September formally declaring four regions to be part of Russia.
The study said that Putin aides have been closely involved in the operation, especially Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights.
It quoted her as saying that 350 children have been adopted by Russian families and that more than 1,000 were awaiting adoption.
