{"id":133,"date":"2025-09-22T14:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T18:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/?p=133"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:43:22","slug":"russia-re-educates-kidnapped-ukrainian-children-at-more-than-210-facilities-war-crimes-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/russia-re-educates-kidnapped-ukrainian-children-at-more-than-210-facilities-war-crimes-researchers-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia re-educates kidnapped Ukrainian children at more than 210 facilities, war crimes researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s network of forcible re-education and militarization sites for Ukrainian children from occupied territory is far more extensive than previously known, Yale University researchers said in a report released last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

War crimes investigators with the university\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab have identified 210 sites in Russia and occupied Ukraine that they say have housed Ukrainian children for military training, pro-Kremlin education, and other efforts aimed at assimilating them into Russian culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022, the Ukrainian government <\/span>has identified<\/span><\/a> at least 20,000 children from occupied territories that have been forcibly taken to Russia, some of them eventually placed with Russian families and given Russian citizenship. Some aid groups <\/span>estimate<\/span><\/a> that the actual number is far higher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The network of facilities, the Yale researchers said, spans summer camps, orphanages, universities, military schools, and at least one religious site. In addition to finding nearly double the number of locations they expected, said the lab\u2019s director, Nathaniel Raymond, they were also surprised by the scope of militarization activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to visually see from 450 miles above the Earth\u2019s surface that they are training kids at gun ranges and in trench fortifications that directly resemble the front-line fortifications we see at this stage in the Ukraine war was truly chilling,\u201d Raymond said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maria Zakharova, a Russian government spokesperson, <\/span>denied<\/span><\/a> the Yale report as \u201cfake fabrications\u201d on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo one bothers to provide any facts and no one bears any responsibility,\u201d she said at a press conference.<\/span><\/p>\n

The investigators from the Humanitarian Research Lab relied on satellite imagery, Russian social media posts, government announcements, and other publicly available, open-source information to identify re-education facilities \u2014 including Russian government property data that showed it owned about half of the sites in question. Around one-quarter of the 210 sites had been identified in previous investigations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Around 62 percent of locations hosted re-education activity for Ukrainian children, including history lectures, museum visits, and programming focused on Russian patriotic themes. Additionally, children underwent some form of military training or militarization at nearly 40 facilities; in one case, children at a site run by Russia\u2019s Ministry of Education assembled drones, mine detectors, robots, and other military equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The findings have some limitations. The Yale researchers could not determine the number of Ukrainian children located at the facilities, nor whether they were still being held. They also cautioned that the actual number of sites could be much higher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the report is significant for identifying the locations of so many re-education centers and tying them directly to the Russian government, said Vladyslav Havrylov, a Ukrainian historian and a fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children\u2019s Issues at Georgetown University.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s once more strong evidence that in high level of Russian governors, they know about forcible deportation from occupied territories, they support this policy, they want to re-education and militarize the children,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a planned policy from [the] Russian Federation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to force force them to live with the reality that now the majority of the camps locations are known,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cThat\u2019s because they\u2019re trying to muddle the numbers as part of the negotiations, to make it harder for the Ukrainians to specifically hold them to definite individuals, definite overall cohort numbers, and access requests to specific locations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the Humanitarian Research Lab\u2019s future is <\/span>uncertain<\/span><\/a> after it lost its federal funding due to Trump administration cuts in March. The lab has since kept running on private donations, Raymond said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The issue of Ukrainian children has generated international outrage and is one of few aspects of the war with bipartisan agreement in Congress. In the days after the Yale lab\u2019s new report, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar, a Republican and a Democrat, took to <\/span>Fox News<\/span><\/a> to re-up calls for unconditionally returning Ukrainian children before any peace agreement with Russia is finalized.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s network of forcible re-education and militarization sites for Ukrainian children from occupied territory is far more extensive than previously known, Yale University researchers said in a report released last week. War crimes investigators with the university\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab have identified 210 sites in Russia and occupied Ukraine that they say have housed Ukrainian<\/p>\n

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