Daily Junction.mobi portal<p>One Ukrainian girl, deported from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in 2022 and enrolled in the programme at a school near Moscow, was <a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2026/05/25/8036209/">photographed</a> a year later beside boxes of aid collected for Russian soldiers fighting against her own country.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of young people from occupied Ukraine have also been enrolled into the <em>Yunarmiya</em> (“Youth Army”), which was founded with Russian military support in 2015 and <a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/02/23/8022368/">now has more</a> than 2 million members. The <em>Yunarmiya</em> trains children and teenagers in basic military skills and physical conditioning, while also providing them with patriotic education.</p>
<p>None of this is new. The Ukrainian region of Crimea, which Russia formally annexed in 2014, was the testing ground for this system. The overall number of cadet classes in schools in occupied Crimea <a href="https://almenda.org/en/okupovana-osvita-krimu-xto-keruye-indoktrinaciyeyu-ta-militarizaciyeyu-shkil/">rose from 12</a> in the 2016-17 academic year to 260 in 2024-25, indicating a systematic militarisation of the educational space.</p>
<p>Children living in Russia or occupied Ukraine are being taught that Ukraine is the enemy – and are becoming the soldiers sent to fight it.</p>
<p>Ukrainian officials say that between February 2022 and July 2025, <a href="https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/4059988-rosia-mobilizuvala-ponad-46-tisac-ukrainciv-z-okupovanih-teritorij-koordstab.html">Russia mobilised over</a> 46,000 residents in occupied territories into its army. In occupied Donetsk alone, more than 3,500 <a href="https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/okupanti-vidmovlyayutsya-demobilizuvati-studentiv-1679920449.html">students were mobilised</a> in the first year of the full-scale war, and 70 were killed.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/292404/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/vladyslav-havrylov-2765981">Vladyslav Havrylov</a>, Research Consultant at the Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/kings-college-london-1196">King's College London</a></em></span></p>
<p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-using-ukraines-children-to-win-its-occupation-and-the-wider-war-292404">original article</a>.</p> </div>