How Russia is Militarising Ukrainian Children
Ukraine is campaigning for this phenomenon to be recognised as a new, stand-alone international crime.
Also see
Demographic Crime: How Russia is Repopulating Occupied Territories
Such actions are a flagrant violation of international laws which protects civilians in wartime.
How Russia is Militarising Ukrainian Children
Ukraine is campaigning for this phenomenon to be recognised as a new, stand-alone international crime.
Nastia was 14 when a Russian tank shell struck her home in Mariupol. Wounded, she and her mother were deported, first to Taganrog and then to Crimea where she was forced to attend propaganda classes at school and sing the Russian national anthem. For refusing Russian passports, Nastia’s mother was threatened with the loss of her parental rights.
Meanwhile, in the occupied part of the Kherson region, ten-year-old Sasha was systematically persecuted at school for his Ukrainian identity and for refusing to participate in militarised events. The boy’s family was also repeatedly intimidated by Russian security forces and threatened with the loss of their parental rights, while the school and the occupation authorities threatened to send Sasha to a correctional facility.
In Crimea, six-year-old Tetiana saw her father sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony and sent to northern Russia with his family. There, having been forced to attend a kindergarten that raises “patriots of Russia” she now sees Ukraine as the enemy and the war as a source of pride.
Ukraine is working toward criminalising such militarisation of children as a new, stand-alone offence to ensure universal accountability and clear international legal framing that this phenomenon a distinct and prosecutable violation of civilian protections.
The stories of these children form the basis of a complaint filed with a UN committee by lawyers from Ukraine’s Regional Centre for Human Rights.
Along with other human rights organisations, the NGO is collaborating with the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN Human Rights Committee and the prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine to secure official recognition of the militarisation of children as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Ukrainian children in occupied territories or after being deported to the Russian Federation are forced to obtain Russian citizenship through pressure on their parents, have their Ukrainian documents confiscated and are compelled to attend local schools where they are saturated with Russian propaganda narratives,” explained Kateryna Rashevska of the Regional Centre for Human Rights. “Russian military personnel frequently visit schools and kindergartens to conduct [sessions titled] Lessons of Courage, Conversations about What’s Important and military-patriotic games like Zarnitsa 2.0.
“In maths textbooks, word problems are framed around the ‘heroes of the Special Military Operation’ and during chemistry lessons, children are told the false claim that Ukraine is shelling Donetsk with chemical bombs.”
Human rights advocates call this influence a covert form of violence that erodes linguistic, national and cultural identity. They warn that children begin to identify with Russia instead of Ukraine, losing their connection to their own history, language, heritage and even their parents.
The task of further reshaping their identity is taken on by Yunarmia (Youth Army), a Russian military-patriotic movement that has become a powerful tool in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Initiated by a former Russian defence minister, Yunarmia effectively serves as a mobilisation reserve for the Russian army.
The National Police of Ukraine stresses that this movement is an instrument of war designed to foster hostility, undermine children’s Ukrainian identity and threaten their mental and physical health. The psychological pressure on these children is intensified by the fact that their instructors are military personnel involved in the invasion of Ukraine.
In March 2025, Vladislav Golovin, the head of Yunarmia’s central staff, reported that the movement had 1.8 million members, with 12,000 of them participating in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
MILITARISATION AS A WAR CRIME
President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told US senators that Ukraine has identified approximately 400 locations in Russia where unlawfully deported Ukrainian children were held. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, around 1,800 children have been returned, but the total number of those deported or abducted exceeds 19,500. Human rights advocates warn that the actual figure could be several times higher.
“International law currently lacks a formal concept of forced militarisation of children,” Rashevska, said, adding that advocates were “facing an uphill battle” to prove that this practice was not merely a violation of educational rights but a distinct war crime.
To address this, Ukraine has initiated a coordination platform to modernise the norms of international humanitarian law. A special rapporteur at the Council of Europe is preparing a resolution where Ukrainian human rights defenders plan to include formal definitions for the militarisation and political indoctrination of children during armed conflict, including under occupation.
The Regional Centre for Human Rights has already filed more than 20 individual complaints with the UN Human Rights Committee concerning violations of children’s rights in the occupied territories, ranging from the right to freedom of thought to the prohibition of torture.
Efforts are also underway to create a compensation mechanism for affected children and their families, to be funded by the Russian Federation or international donors.
On October 22, 2025, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe approved a draft convention to establish an International Commission to review Ukraine’s claims against Russia. Rashevska noted that this was a significant step toward securing reparations.
Beyond the legal dimension, there is a psychological one: children who are returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory are traumatised. They are afraid to speak Ukrainian, avoid attending school and do not know who they can trust.
In 2025, Ukrainian psychologists, in collaboration with the Regional Centre for Human Rights, developed a guide to address the impact of Russian occupation on Ukrainian children.
This initiative includes a national protocol for rehabilitation, outlining a phased support system for child returnees. The approach integrates psychological, educational and legal assistance, featuring personalised rehabilitation plans, support from mentor families and efforts to restore the child’s Ukrainian identity.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science, the number of children secretly continuing their studies in Ukrainian programmes fell from 44,000 to 35,000 during the 2024–2025 academic year. This means 9,000 children left the Ukrainian education system in a single semester.
CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS
The militarisation of children as a general phenomenon is not explicitly criminalised in Ukrainian national law, although specific acts that fall under this broader concept are generally prosecuted under Article 438 of the criminal code which covers war crimes.
These prosecutions address particular violations of wartime legal norms, rather than the concept of militarisation in its entirety.
Over the past several years, Ukrainian investigators have identified an extensive network of over 100 individuals involved in recruiting children into the Yunarmia movement. They have also documented the scale of propaganda aimed at justifying the aggression and fostering loyalty to the occupying forces.
Ten Ukrainian citizens, leaders of the Yunarmia organisation in the occupied part of Donetsk region, have been officially named as suspects. Their actions are prosecuted under Articles 28, 438, and 436-2 of the criminal code of Ukraine. In parallel, juvenile prosecutors are conducting eight criminal investigations into the propaganda and militarisation of children in the Kherson and Luhansk regions and Crimea.
Five indictments have been sent to court and the head of the Yunarmia regional headquarters in Sevastopol has already been sentenced to ten years in prison for war crimes.
Human rights advocates and educators are also now working on a strategy of cognitive de-occupation, based on a concept proposed by Tamila Tasheva, the President’s Representative in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
The goal is not only to liberate territories but to win back the people through knowledge, culture, trust and support.
“Across all occupied territories, Russian propaganda is embedding harmful worldviews in people’s minds, like ideological landmines,” Tasheva said. “In fact, cognitive de-occupation is the process of clearing the minds of our fellow citizens who have been victimised by the occupation.
“This requires a systemic approach with specific tasks for everyone – for citizens, the media and officials – to develop the right policies.”
