Several hundred children remained in the camps for weeks or months past the planned return date, according to the report The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab Report.
Russia has also expedited the adoption and fostering of Ukrainian children, which could amount to a war crime, according to the report.
Would give the children a pro-Russian point of view
According to the report, children as young as four months old have been sent to 43 camps across Russia since the war began almost a year ago.
The children have been sent to, among other places, annexed Crimea and Siberia for pro-Russian patriotic and military-related education, the report states.
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by several weeks, while in two other camps the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
CAMP: Several thousand Ukrainian children have attended Russian camps since the Russian invasion. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/AP
Russian authorities tried to give children a pro-Russian point of view through the school curriculum.
In addition, they went on trips to patriotic sites and landmarks, as well as received lectures from veterans, according to the report. The children must also have received training in the use of weapons.
– Evidence of Russia’s actions reveals their goal to suppress Ukraine’s identity, history and culture. The devastating effects of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations, a statement from the US Department of State.
SPOKESMAN: Spokesman for the United States Department of State, Ned Price. Photo: Tom Brenner/AP
Spokesman for the United States Department of State, Ned Price, so that the report describes Russia’s systematic efforts to move thousands of Ukraine’s children to areas under Russian control via 43 camps and other facilities.
– In many cases, Russia claimed to temporarily evacuate children from Ukraine in favor of a free summer camp, only to later refuse to return the children and cut off all contact with their families, Price stated.
Pressured into consent
The report called for a neutral body to gain access to the camps and for Russia to immediately stop adoptions of Ukrainian children.
Furthermore, the report quoted Putin’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, as saying that 350 children had been adopted by Russian families and that more than 1,000 were awaiting adoption.
CHILD RIGHTS: Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
Russia’s embassy in Washington responded to the report’s findings on Telegram, saying: Russia accepted children who were forced to flee with their families from the shelling. We do our best to keep minors in families. In cases of absence or death of parents and relatives, we transfer orphans to a guardian.
According to the report, some parents were pressured to consent to sending their children away, sometimes in the hope that they would return.
Others are sent with the consent of the parents for an agreed duration of days or weeks, and are returned to the parents as planned.
The report was prepared using satellite images and public accounts. It states that the number of children sent to the camps is probably significantly higher than the 6,000 confirmed.
BOMB ROOM: Playing inside a shelter prepared for school children in Kyiv. Photo: GENYA SAVILOV/AFP
Children could not be returned
Researchers spoke with the parents of children who had attended the camps or were there, as well as with children who had attended.
– After calling the director of a camp, a mother was told that children could not be returned because there is war there, the report states.
There is little information about how they explained to children about the delays in the return. According to the report, an official at a camp allegedly told a boy from Ukraine that his return was conditional: the children would be returned if Russia recaptured the city of Izium.
HAPPY CHILDREN: Ukrainian children play along the side of the road in Bakhmut. Photo: CLODAGH KILCOYNE/Reuters
Some parents were told that their children will be released if they physically come to pick them up. Relatives or persons with authorization were not allowed to pick up the children.
– A significant proportion of these families have a low income and cannot afford the trip to collect the children. Some families were forced to sell possessions and travel through four countries to be reunited with their child, the report said.
The Ukrainian government claims that several thousand children have been deported to Russia.
