Our investigation was the sixth mission established by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)<\/a> since 2022 to investigate human rights violations<\/a> in relation to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It\u2019s the second to focus specifically on children. <\/p>\n The first of these two missions<\/a> was concerned with their forcible transfer to the Russian Federation. Our task<\/a> was to build on this first mission and assess whether Russia\u2019s conduct during the war against Ukraine violates applicable international law, such as the Geneva Conventions<\/a> and the Convention on the Rights of the Child<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the three weeks of our mission, we collected and analysed a vast amount of data. This included written reports, comments and statements produced by international organisations such as the United Nations, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union.<\/p>\n We also collected testimonies, both online and in person, from young adults who had experienced indoctrination and militarisation as children in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. And we also heard from teachers who had spent some time under occupation before escaping to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government. <\/p>\n During a visit to Kyiv, we also conducted a series of interviews with representatives of Ukrainian government institutions and civil society organisations.<\/p>\n Our report, presented to the OSCE Permanent Council on July 9<\/a>, offers sometimes distressing detail and harrowing witness accounts.<\/p>\n For example, in one of the written testimonies available to us, the witness explained how the headteacher of the local school, accompanied by heavily armed soldiers, went from house to house to question parents who do not send their children to school and had not yet applied for Russian passports. He threatened them with the removal of their parental rights. He also said their children would be placed in institutions if they didn\u2019t yield to the pressure to do so. In the face of such a display of government power, the parents eventually gave in. <\/p>\n This particular incident, which is far from an isolated case according to evidence collected by the UN<\/a> and the OSCE<\/a>, illustrates the level of coercion applied not just to children but their whole families. It also shows the extent to which different government agencies collaborate in this.<\/p>\n The coercion of Ukrainians in the occupied territories to take Russian passports<\/a> is also significant when it comes to what we refer to in our report as the \u201cconscription pipeline\u201d. Children are being systematically prepared for future armed service. By being forced into Russian citizenship, boys also become eligible for conscription as soon as they turn 18. <\/p>\n There is clear evidence by now that they are not just doing regular military service. Many of them are sent to the front lines where several have died<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, what does the system of indoctrination and militarisation look like and how does it work? The use of the Ukrainian language<\/a> is prohibited in schools and significantly obstructed in public and private life. Ukrainian children are subject to education under the Russian state curriculum. This now involves high levels of historical falsification and ideological indoctrination. <\/p>\n To give just one striking example, the history textbook for Grade 11 devotes 29 pages to the so-called \u201cspecial military operation\u201d. It frames<\/a> the invasion of Ukraine as a defensive response to western aggression. Versions of this textbook for lower grades, starting in grade five, have been used<\/a> across schools in the occupied territories since the beginning of academic year 2025-26. <\/p>\n Amnesty International has assessed this textbook<\/a> as \u201ca blatant attempt to unlawfully indoctrinate school children in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories\u201d. <\/p>\n Ukrainian children are exposed to the full toolkit of Russian militarisation techniques. For example, since the beginning of the 2023\u201324 academic year, the course entitled \u201cFundamentals of Security and Defence of the Motherland\u201d has been compulsory in all schools<\/a> in the occupied territories. <\/p>\n Russian media reports say this means<\/a> the \u201creturn [of] initial military training as part of life safety lessons\u201d. The UN has established that this includes<\/a> \u201c170 hours of military training including on the main types of grenades, small arms, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, and sniper rifles\u201d.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t stop there. The patriotic youth organisation Movement of the First, created in December 2022 by Vladimir Putin, has revived a Soviet-era military war game, which has been rolled out<\/a> into the occupied territories since the beginning of the 2024 school year.<\/p>\n As part of the game\u2019s simulated military activities<\/a> children are divided into armies. They are trained in assembling weapons, operating drones, acting as \u201cstorm troopers\u201d and completing \u201cmilitary-tactical\u201d obstacle courses. They also practice cyber warfare and information operations. <\/p>\n The Institute for the Study of War describes<\/a> this game as part of \u201ca wider Russian ecosystem operating throughout occupied Ukraine with the explicit purpose of militarising Ukrainian children, indoctrinating them against their Ukrainian identities, and training them to fight for the Russian military\u201d.<\/p>\n Russia does not deny this is being done. On the contrary, senior Russian officials are on the record justifying the indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children. For example, Yana Lantratova<\/a>, formerly deputy chair of the State Duma\u2019s committee on education, now Russia\u2019s human rights commissioner, noted<\/a> \u2013 with specific reference to children in Russian-occupied Ukraine \u2013 that the Russian Federation \u201cmust first of all take care of the main thing \u2013 our children. To develop and enlighten them, to instil in them a sense of the Motherland\u201d. <\/p>\n Except that these are not Russian children, they are Ukrainian. The evidence we collected for our report left us with no doubt that Russian occupation policies amount to grave violations of international law<\/a> when it comes to the indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children living in the territories under Russian control.<\/p>\n For example, the unlawful transformation of the education system in the occupied territories is a clear breach of Article 43 of the Hague Regulations<\/a> and of Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention<\/a>.<\/p>\n This led us to call on all parties to immediately and meaningfully recognise the plight of Ukrainian children for their safety, identity and family life in the ongoing war and in all negotiations. In the words of one of the interviewees we spoke to in Kyiv: \u201cAny deal to end the war cannot just be about kilometres.\u201d<\/p>\n Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the Nato Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He also regularly provides advice to governments and international organisations. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n El\u012bna \u0160teinerte is a Member of the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT) and the elected Vice Chair on National Preventive Mechanisms, as well as a former Member and Chair Rapporteur of UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. In these capacities, she frequently advises and acts as an expert for governments and other stakeholders on legislation, regulatory frameworks and implementation issues.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Herv\u00e9 Ascensio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we were asked to investigate Russia\u2019s indoctrination and militarisation of children living in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow since 2014, we had a general idea of the Kremlin\u2019s occupation policies. Two of us grew up in what was then Soviet-occupied Latvia and East Germany. We were already familiar with the Soviet approach to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Young minds<\/h2>\n
Raising soldiers<\/h2>\n
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