Daily Junction.mobi portalWorld · October 6, 2026 · The Conversation · 5 min
Russia’s strategy is twofold, to secure compliance from parents in occupied areas and erase Ukrainian identity.
<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <figure> <img alt="A child wrapped in a Ukrainian flag in a damaged building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/763103/original/file-20260930-50-m3eax4.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&rect=0%2C359%2C3999%2C2250&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /> <figcaption> Ukraine’s authorities have verified 20,651 cases of children deported or forcibly displaced to Russia and Belarus since 2022. <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/child-stands-dilapidated-house-looks-around-2374876231?trackingId=6e8d693a-8da7-41af-8440-4b4f9e08baad&listId=searchResults">Madonova / Shutterstock</a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/vladyslav-havrylov-2765981">Vladyslav Havrylov</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/kings-college-london-1196">King's College London</a></em></span>
<p>A year or so after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the city of Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic north-west marked its annual regional day with a celebration for children. Alongside the sons and daughters of Russian soldiers <a href="https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2023/06/murmansk-brings-230-kids-ukrainian-friendship-town-russia">stood children taken</a> from the occupied Prymorskyi district of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s authorities have <a href="https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/">verified 20,651 cases</a> of children deported or forcibly displaced to Russia and Belarus since 2022. Some estimates, including figures <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/politics/30/07/2023/64c6c3119a794777ebcc7766">shared</a> by Russian officials themselves, run as high as 744,000. As of September 2026, just 2,644 <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/ukraine-8201">Ukrainian</a> children have been returned.</p>
<p>The International Criminal Court <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and">issued arrest warrants</a> for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and his children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, in March 2023 for their roles in this campaign.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://deportation.org.ua/">Where Are Our People?</a> project, which I work alongside, has identified at least 47 Russian and Belarusian individuals directly involved in the deportations. These people range from regional governors to business executives. Only some of them are under western sanctions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable"> <a aria-label="Zoomable image" href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of temporary accommodation centres for deported persons in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/763037/original/file-20260930-50-6opwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a> <figcaption> <span class="caption">Map of temporary accommodation centres for deported persons in Russia and Belarus, compiled from research by Vladyslav Havrylov and Oleksandr Rudenkyi.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://deportation.org.ua/map-of-deportations/">Where Are Our People? / BLCK L</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p>My <a href="https://totinsights.org/themes/education-and-militarisation.html">work</a>, which I carry out with colleagues at King’s College London, involves tracking the fate of deported Ukrainian children through regional government documents and the social media posts of Russian officials. Our findings suggest that child deportation is not a byproduct of war, but a systematic <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/capturing-the-minds-the-role-of-child-deportation-in-maintaining-russian-authority-over-ukraines-occupied-territories/752354B4F5AB0983F4CE5A489FA10391">instrument of occupation</a>.</p>
<p>In the short term, the deportation of children means control over families in occupied Ukraine. Children are removed from occupied areas under the banner of “rehabilitation” or “health holidays” to escape active conflict. They are then placed thousands of miles away in Siberia, the Arctic or far east.</p>
<p>Their personal data is concealed and some <a href="https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2022/12/chibis-sanctioned-involvement-child-kidnapping">children are placed</a> with Russian families. For parents left behind in occupied cities such as Melitopol or Mariupol, preserving the possibility of getting their children back means <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/capturing-the-minds-the-role-of-child-deportation-in-maintaining-russian-authority-over-ukraines-occupied-territories/752354B4F5AB0983F4CE5A489FA10391">complying</a> with the Russian authorities on their terms.</p>
<p>Russia’s longer game is to ensure the next generation of Ukrainians from the occupied territories do not think of themselves as Ukrainian at all. Researchers at Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab have <a href="https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/ukraines-stolen-children-inside-russias-network-of-re-education-and-militarization/">mapped 210 facilities</a> inside Russia where deported Ukrainian children are held and subject to re-education or militarisation.</p>
<p>This harm will outlast any ceasefire. Researchers say deported children who eventually return to Ukraine face a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.70124">“dual adaptation”</a> – not a restoration of pre-war life but a renegotiation of it. They have to adjust to new surroundings while rebuilding an identity that has been suppressed for years. Ukraine has no unified state programme to support these people.</p>
<h2>A reserve for the army</h2>
<p>Children who remain in occupied Ukraine are subject to re-education and <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-investigated-russias-military-indoctrination-of-ukrainian-children-in-occupied-territories-what-we-found-was-more-shocking-than-we-could-have-imagined-287898">militarisation</a>, too. Roughly 1.6 million Ukrainian children are <a href="https://zmina.info/en/news-en/russia-intensifies-combat-training-for-high-schoolers-in-occupied-crimea-irade-human-rights-initiative/">currently living under</a> occupation, of which at least 582,000 are of school age.</p>
<p>These children are taught to Russian standards. Mandatory weekly lessons called <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mandatory-patriotism-classes-in-russian-schools/a-63687952">“Conversations about important things”</a> began in 2022 in schools throughout the occupied territories. Russia’s education ministry specifies what these important things are.</p>
<p>In occupied Zaporizhzhia, these lessons <a href="https://khpg.org/en/1608814441">teach students about</a> the region’s liberation from the Nazis in the second world war and the supposed “return of Nazism” to Ukraine after 2014, when the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv was ousted from power. The lessons cast Russia’s invasion as a second liberation.</p>
<p>Children who have since left occupied territory <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/07/16/witness-conversations-about-important-things">describe teachers praising</a> Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, showing films that glorify the war and inviting Russian soldiers to class who urge pupils to stand ready to defend the “motherland”. </p>
<p>Inside Russia, the “Conversations about important things” lessons are meant to reinforce loyalty to the state. In occupied Ukraine, <a href="https://www.rusdemsociety.co.uk/post/conversations-about-important-things">they serve a different purpose</a>: replacing children’s Ukrainian identity with a Russian one.</p>
<p>Primary school pupils in occupied Ukraine are also enrolled in <a href="https://www.ombudsman.gov.ua/storage/app/media/uploaded-files/Special%20Report%20_CROSS-POLLINATED_.pdf"><em>Orlyata Rossii</em></a> (Eaglets of Russia). This is the junior wing of the Kremlin’s Movement of the First for Russian children and a revival of the Soviet-era “Little Octobrists”, which provide children with military training such as assembling weapons and operating drones.</p>
<p>In occupied Zaporizhzhia alone, the programme is <a href="https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/09/22/russia-child-militarization-occupied-ukraine-schools/">thought to have</a> more than 10,000 participants across 97 schools. Children are ceremonially <a href="https://www.warchild.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-09/Return_Every_Child_Report_WCUK.pdf">“consecrated”</a> as eaglets, and the results can be stark. </p>
![[View image]](/img/tc-russia-is-using-ukraine-s-children-to-win-its-occupation-and-the-wider-war.jpg){kind=link}