Russia has deported another 450 children from areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation, the National Resistance Center reported on Aug. 17.
According to the center, 50 Ukrainian high school students were sent to Yaroslavl, a city about 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The center believes that once there, Russian teachers will try to convince the students to continue their higher education at Yaroslavl State University.
Another 200 children from occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast, 150 children from Kherson Oblast, and 50 children from Zaporizhzhia Oblast were sent to summer camps in Krasnodar region.
Ukrainian children are taught to believe Russian propaganda in these camps and attend activities like Russian patriotic concerts. At the end of the camp, Ukrainian children are often not returned home.
Daria Shulzhenko
The conditions in Russian hotels, summer camps, and recreation centers for Ukrainian children are frequently poor, according to a report by a coalition of Ukrainian NGOs that documents Russia's war crimes.
A February 2023 study by the Yale School of Public Health shows that Moscow has established a whole "network of re-education and adoption facilities" in Russia and occupied Crimea.
More than 19,500 children have been identified by the Ukrainian government as having been deported. Only 385 of them have been returned to Ukraine.
Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova claimed on July 31 that 700,000 Ukrainian children have been brought to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in March 2023 for Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their involvement in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.
Russia withdrew from the ICC in 2016 following its criticism of Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea.
