UKRAINIAN children abducted during the war are forced to make military equipment used against their homeland, chilling research reveals.
Thousands of innocent youngsters shipped to more than 200 sinister camps across Russia are being subjected to brainwashing and being used as pawns by deranged Vladimir Putin.
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Sickenlingly, satelitte images shows children being used as slave labour to assemble drones and other supplies fuelling the tyrant’s war machine in Ukraine.
Military training has been observed at around 40 of the sites holding children as young as eight, including ceremonial parades and drills, and combat training.
Officials told The Sun it shows Kremlin stooges are teaching children to fight against their home, blasting their use as a “weapons” against Ukraine and beyond.
Daria Herasymchuck, advisor and commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, told The Sun: “For those of us who have observed Putin’s actions up close for more than a decade, we are well accustomed to their evasion, distortion and calculated indifference.
“We are appalled by the large-scale, logistical and operational capacity Russia is operating in – using children, who are always the most vulnerable victims in armed conflicts, in such a way, is deliberately cruel.”
Since megalomaniac Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and sent to at least 210 facilities inside Russia and occupied territory.
These sites range from summer camps and sanatoriums to a military base, and, in one case, a monastery, according to research by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).
Russia is known to have engaged in the deportation, re-education, militarisation and forced adopting of Ukrainian children since at least 2014 from the occupied territories of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.
But since Putin’s ordered his troops in more than three years ago, researchers say these barbaric efforts have siginificantly expanded.
The HRL has used satellite imagery and open source materials to identify and track Ukrainian children snatched during the war.
Its horrifying report, Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization, reveals the staggering efforts Moscow goes to to brainwash these youngsters.
Children have been rounded up and moved to at least eight different location types.
These are cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, a hotel, family support centers and orphanages, and camps and sanatoriums.
At least two new cadet schools have been constructed, and at least 49 of the 210 locations have been expanded since the start of the war.
Children are forced to develop “fire and naval training skills” at some sites as part of a warped militarisation campaign.
They are required to participate in “shooting competitions and grenade throwing competitions” as well as receive “tactical medicince, drone control and tactics” training.
In one instance, youngsters from Donetsk oblast received “airborne training” at a military base, the HRL’s report – shared with United
Nations Security Council- reveals.
Children have also been used to help produced military equipment for Russia’s armed forces, including drones.
Herasymchuck, of Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative, told The Sun: “The report shows Russia is prepared to use Ukraine’s own children as a ‘weapon’ against Ukraine, and Europe more broadly.
“They are being trained to fight against their own homeland.
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“This is all part of Russia’s long-term campaign to erase the Ukrainian identity – central to this is the Russification and militarisation of Ukrainian children as the report outlines.”
Some youngsters have been held temporarily before returning home – while others have been held indefinitely.
As part of Putin’s callous regime to indoctrinate these children, many have been pushed into a network of so-called family centres.
Others have been pushed into Russia’s programme of coerced fostering and adoption – seeing them eventually placed within a Russian family.
For those who return home, Ukraine authorities have been told of the drastic work that has to be done to undo the damage.
Herasymchuck said: “Rehabilitation for children who return from deportation is one of the most sensitive and complex aspects of our work.
“These children have experienced not only physical displacement but also deep psychological trauma.
“When kids return, children often feel confused, disconnected, or afraid.
“These children have been taught not to resist. That is deeply alarming. Some carry guilt or shame. Others return with hostility or denial of their own identity.
“This is why our work does not end with bringing children home.
Children used as ‘weapons’
Exclusive by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
RUSSIA is using abducted and brainwashed children as “weapons”, one of Zelensky’s staff battling to rescue Ukraine’s kidnapped kids warned.
Daria Zarivna told The Sun earlier this year that no peace deal will be brokered until Moscow agrees to return thousands of kidnapped youngsters home.
She warned Vladimir Putin’s thugs are indoctrinating these youngsters and those living in Ukrainian territory under Russian control.
Bring Kids Back Ukraine operations director Daria said Moscow will push them into joining Russia’s army to use them as a “weapon” against Europe in the future.
Since Putin illegally invaded Ukraine three years ago, tens of thousands of children have been kidnapped and taken into Russia.
Kremlin stooges then disturbingly try to rid the youngsters of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.
Sinister camps have been set up in Russia where children are sent before having their official documents altered and being placed in Russian families.
Often the children are told that their loved ones have abandoned them and that they are now part of the Russian Federation.
Mariana Betsa, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, told The Sun how some children have been abused and suffered sexual violence.
She said: “It’s not just a statistic, 20,000. It’s a life behind every person behind every statistic.
“We have so many families who were separated. We have so many children who were abducted.
“We need to return every single child.”
Presidential advisor Daria meanwhile warned Russia will use the children as a “weapon” against not only Ukraine, but the rest of Europe.
She said: “We are working on keeping this matter in the spotlight and we think that it is extremely important that it be a part of these talks because the Ukrainian children which Russia keeps under its control
“It’s a threat to global security, to Ukraine’s security.
“There are 1.6 million Ukrainian children currently staying in the temporarily occupied territories under the control of Russia.
“They’ve been indoctrinated, they’ve been militarised.”
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“Under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, Ukraine has built a reintegration system that provides each child with a tailored protection and recovery plan.
“Based on children’s needs, they receive medical care, psychological support, legal aid, safe housing, and access to education.”
The Sun previously spoke to one teenager who fell victim to Putin’s evil scheme.
Nastya, then 15, was abducted from Kherson Oblast when it was seized by Putin’s fighters at the beginning of the war in March 2022.
The terrified teenager was placed with a woman who also had ten other children in her care.
She told how she was abused and beat her until she was sent back to the police station where she had originally been held.
Nastya was then enrolled in a college, where she said she was routinely humiliated by soldiers who told her: “You are nothing.”
Eventually, Nastya was able to find a phone and make a call to her mother, who tracked down volunteers in Ukraine to help get her home.
In March 2023, arrest warrants for Putin and his twisted children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were issued by the International Criminal Court.
Russia attempted to denounce the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable”.
Lvova-Belova has attempted to portray the forced deportation of Ukrainian children as a Russian rescue mission since being appointed Putin’s children’s commissioner in 2021.
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