Russia Is ‘Reeducating’ Thousands of Ukrainian Children

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been forced into Russian reeducation camps, according to a study from the Conflict Observatory and Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab. The study, published on February 14, reported that at least 6,000 Ukrainian children have been held at these camps since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The total number of children is likely much higher.

The Russian program involves at least 43 facilities, some of which are located over 500 miles from the Ukrainian border. The primary purpose of these facilities is political reeducation of Ukrainian children to indoctrinate them into the Russian worldview.

That level of so-called “reeducation” is a very clear and systematic attempt to erase the history and culture and, in very clear documented cases, even the historical importance and language of Ukraine.
—Caitlin Howarth, Yale researcher

The report identifies several federal, regional and local figures directly involved in these reeducation camps, including Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights. Researchers said the camps are exposing the children to Russian propaganda, and two camps in Crimea and Chechnya even provide military training.

Consent crisis: Parents are required to sign legal documents to consent to their children’s attendance at these camps, but in many cases, parents were forced to sign their consent under threat by Russian forces. At one site, camp officials reported that several Ukrainian teenagers, ages 14 to 17, were present without explicit parental consent.

The Trumpet says: In his booklet The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia,’ Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes: “[Ukraine] is the linchpin of [Russian President Vladimir Putin’s] goal of a renewed imperial Russia!” Putin wants to use these reeducation camps to help fulfill his dream of a new Soviet empire.