A new report claims that Ukrainian children are being forced into a sprawling network of militarised camps and indoctrinated by Moscow to rebuild its armies
Fiona Hamilton
June 15, 2025
The Times
When Tatiana’s son was removed by Russian forces in Kherson, the official narrative was that it would only be a few weeks to keep him safe during the early part of the invasion of Ukraine.
In fact it was the best part of a year before Tatiana would see her teenage boy again. And even then it was only after she took the perilous journey into Russian-held Crimea, where officials accused her of acting for Ukrainian intelligence and subjected her to several days of questioning before releasing her son into her custody.
He had a broken arm and leg, and Tatiana is sceptical about the claim given of sports-related injuries at the camp he had been taken to. He was subjected to isolation as punishment for acts of defiance, including tearing down a Russian flag, and has permanent hearing loss in one ear after a blow to the head with the handle of a machine gun.
She believes he was placed under duress by Russian authorities as part of a wider attempt to indoctrinate children.
Tatiana’s story is among a series of first-hand accounts detailed in a new report claiming that President Putin’s targeting and weaponising of children is a critical part of his preparations for a wider war in Europe.
The report, launched at Globsec Forum in Prague on Friday, details how Russia’s population displacement and the deportation of children not only represents a “deliberate and devastating assault on a civilian population”, but poses a grave threat to European security.
The systemic deportation and forced assimilation of Ukrainian children are “core components of the Kremlin’s hybrid war strategy”, according to the report, named Stolen Generations: A Systematic Violation of Ukraine’s Future.
Its author Megan Gittoes, an associate fellow at the Globsec NGO, says that Russia is attempting to forcibly integrate children, erasing their Ukrainian heritage, to rebuild its army for a future war.
An estimated 1.6 million children at about 500 schools reside in occupied territory across four regions, with the report detailing how they are forced into a sprawling network of militarised camps and programmes to receive ideological conditioning and basic military training. They are being prepared for future combat, Gittoes warns.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022 Ukrainian authorities have confirmed about 20,000 cases of forcibly transferred or deported children. Upon arrival in Russia or Belarus, many have been re-registered as Russian citizens, renamed and placed in state-sanctioned adoption networks.
Stolen Generations also reveals how the process is so systemic that prospective parents in Russia are openly using social media to track down Ukrainian children, detail their journeys over the border to collect them and boast about their adoptions.
Open-source analysis, detailed in the report, tracked individuals via groups on VK, the Russian social media network, which promoted adoption. Potential parents were found to have publicly expressed preferences for “war orphans” perceived to be physically and mentally healthier than institutionalised children.
In occupied regions, Russia deployed its Crimean blueprint — purging the Ukrainian curriculum, textbooks and language instruction so that students are taught a distorted version of Russian history and are often forbidden from speaking Ukrainian.
One student, who attended Russian school by day and secret Ukrainian online classes by night, told Gittoes that “education was pointed towards a war with Nato”.
The report warns: “The Russian Federation is creating a long-term fragmented future generation of Ukrainians. These children are placed with Russian families, attend Russian schools, and are prohibited from speaking Ukrainian. Those within Russian controlled territories are compelled to take Russian citizenship, subjected to intense propaganda re-education, and often enlisted into the Russian youth army.”
Valeriia, a 15-year-old girl who was removed to a Russian camp from the Kherson region, told how she was forced to sing the Russian national anthem, learn Russian songs and was forbidden to communicate in Ukraine.
Gittoes says: “Under Russian occupation, children are subjected to an alternate reality designed to sever their connection to Ukraine. They are made to believe that their lives — having been irrevocably changed — will remain with Russia and that Russia is for ever. This psychological warfare on children is explicitly intentional.”
Even when Ukrainian parents managed to relocate their children, repatriation is ad hoc, slow, and traumatising, with some children having spent more than three years in Russian care before being located.
Families interviewed for the report described feeling ignored and abandoned, with a lack of co-ordinated support upon return.
Gittoes interviewed children and families as well as law enforcement and NGO officials. She concludes that Russia’s mission is “about Ukrainian children being brought up under the Russian military machine, indoctrinated to fight in future wars”. As peace negotiations progress it is essential for western leaders to understand territorial concessions in these terms, she said.
Fiona Hamilton is the chief reporter of The Times, covering the spectrum of major news stories including security issues. Previously, as crime and security editor, she repeatedly uncovered police failings and won a national press award for her work on the Wayne Couzens case. She has been working at The Times since 2008 and began her journalism career in Australia working on regional newspapers