High-ranking Russian officers are running military training programs for Ukrainian children from occupied territories and overseeing a system of youth militarization, an investigation by the Kyiv Independent has found. The programs are organized by the Warrior Center for Military and Patriotic Education — a network created in 2022 by direct order of Vladimir Putin. An investigation by the Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Unit revealed that Ukrainian teenagers from occupied parts of Kherson, Zapor

Editor's note: Some names including Oksana's have been changed for security reasons. Oksana was just 14 when Russia occupied her village, and only 16 when Russian forces began training and indoctrinating her to fight against Ukraine. At a camp outside Moscow, what was sold as a short vacation was in fact three weeks of intensive military training. "Sometimes I fainted," she said. "They gave me smelling salts, I got up and kept running with the gun. "My mom didn’t believe me until I sent her

This documentary exposes Russia’s vast system that indoctrinates Ukrainian children, using education and leisure programs in occupied territories to build Russia’s future army.

According to an investigation by the Kyiv Independent, the Russian military interfered with the work of locals who were evacuating people from the flooded areas on their own — their boats were confiscated, while the volunteers were threatened and forced to stop their efforts.

For Viktoriia Hrinienkova, life came to a standstill in June 2023. Three of her family members — her mother, father, and grandmother — died in their own home in Hola Prystan, a Ukrainian town in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Oblast. They were killed in the aftermath of Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s dam. The Russian forces controlling the plant blew up its engine room from the inside on June 6, 2023. The dam’s destruction caused severe flooding across do

Editor’s Note: This story was produced in collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption and Reporting Project (OCCRP) and is published by both organizations. The story is based on the Kyiv Independent’s latest investigative documentary, “He Came Back.” The day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Maryna discovered she was expecting a boy. Fearing it might be the last time she would be able to get to a hospital, she queued for hours at checkpoints to attend the ultra

The Kyiv Independent's journalists have identified two Russian soldiers who were involved in the rape of two women during the occupation of Kyiv and Kherson oblasts in March 2022. The findings have served as the basis for the Kyiv Independent's documentary about Russian sexual violence in occupied parts of Ukraine – He Came Back – available in English and Ukrainian. The Kyiv Independent confirmed that Mykola Senenko, a soldier with the 109th Motorized Rifle Regiment, raped a woman in Krasnivka

Sexual violence is one of the weapons Russian soldiers systematically use against Ukrainians. The Kyiv Independent presents “He Came Back” – a documentary that investigates sexual violence as war crimes.

Editor's Note: The story is based on the documentary Uprooted, published by the Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigation Unit. Russia is systematically deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied part of Ukraine against their will – which constitutes genocide according to one of the five definitions given in the United Nations' Genocide Convention. Once in Russia, Ukrainian children are held incommunicado, brainwashed with pro-Russian propaganda, and adopted by Russian families – even th

The Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigation Unit established the names of Russian-controlled officials who took part in the abduction and followed the paths of families who risked their lives to bring their children back.