New findings presented to the OSCE Permanent Council show systematic, accelerating Russian Federation policy to militarise and indoctrinate Ukrainian children.
New evidence of a systematic, accelerating, and increasingly sophisticated Russian Federation policy to militarise and indoctrinate Ukrainian children has been presented to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Permanent Council today (Thursday 9 July).
The new report contains findings from a mission undertaken in June this year to Ukraine by three independent experts, including University of Birmingham researcher Professor Stefan Wolff. It sets out findings that show how Russia’s system of indoctrination and militarisation has grown into a complex and large-scale operation that reaches children from kindergarten age to high school in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and in Russia itself.
This mission was invoked in May by 41 of the OSCE’s 57 participating States. It was carried out in June by Professor Hervé Ascensio from the University of Paris (France), Dr Elīna Šteinerte (Latvia), and Professor Wolff.
The experts found that what began as an improvised, friction-laden occupation policy in Crimea after its 2014 annexation has become a fast, well-resourced, and expanding system.
Measures that took the Russian Federation years to implement in Crimea, such as replacing the school curriculum, phasing out Ukrainian-language education, and rolling out youth paramilitary structures, were imposed within weeks or months in territory occupied after the 2022 full-scale invasion.
Beyond changes to formal education, approximately 50,000 children each year are directed to so-called recreation camps that run indoctrination and militarisation programmes. Membership of the state-sponsored military-patriotic ‘Movement of the First’ among children has grown from around 60,000 in 2022 to more than 340,000 today, nearly a sixfold increase.
The system has also deepened and widened, the experts found. Programmes such as ‘Eaglets of Russia,’ one of several Russian military-patriotic youth organisations, now reach children of kindergarten and elementary-school age, and a naval academy trains children as young as eight to operate drones.
This has grown into an operation that has been learning, speeding up, and expanding for over a decade, and there is no sign that Russia is done or even slowing down. If anything, our findings show that the Kremlin is accelerating its campaign to alter the identity of Ukrainian children.
Government institutions, from the Kremlin to the local level, the Russian Orthodox Church, and state-owned companies are directly involved in organising, implementing and funding these programmes. Ukrainian children have also been documented at camps in Russia, Belarus, and North Korea.
Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham, said: “The indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children by Russian Federation-backed groups is not new. Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, there has been a deliberate effort to use formal education and a wide range of extracurricular activities to indoctrinate and militarise Ukrainian children.
“However, while this initially took years to implement, since the 2022 full-scale invasion, these efforts have become far more systematic, efficient, and sophisticated. Russia is no longer running a static system of indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children. This has grown into an operation that has been learning, speeding up, and expanding for over a decade, and there is no sign that Russia is done or even slowing down. If anything, our findings show that the Kremlin is accelerating its campaign to alter the identity of Ukrainian children.”
As of June 2026, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice recorded 20,610 children as deported or forcibly transferred. Ukrainian authorities report that only 2,264 had been returned as of the same month. The mission concluded that the low rate of return reflects a deliberate Russian policy to prevent family reunification, forming part of a broader effort to alter the identity of Ukrainian children in Russian hands.
The Mission concluded that Russia’s conduct violates international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention (on the protection of civilians) and the Hague Regulations (on occupation), as well as international human rights law, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The experts further found that the practices of systemic indoctrination and militarisation may constitute a crime against humanity in the form of persecution. The new report has also endorsed prior findings that the forcible transfer and deportation of children may constitute the crime against humanity of deportation and forcible transfer of population, while also identifying probable war crimes, including torture, inhuman treatment, and unlawful deportation of children.
The mission recommends that the importance of Ukrainian children’s safety, identity, and family life is immediately, effectively, and meaningfully recognised during the ongoing war and in any cease-fire or peace negotiations.
It calls on the Russian Federation to halt all indoctrination and militarisation practices, end coercion against children, parents, and teachers, facilitate the return of all deported children, and establish a mechanism to restore their identity.
It also encourages Ukraine to continue strengthening documentation, return, reintegration, and rehabilitation systems for children, and calls on OSCE participating States and the wider international community to support accountability mechanisms and international cooperation to end impunity for crimes against Ukrainian children.
In formal comments accompanying the report, Ukraine welcomed the mission’s recommendations as a valuable and important basis for further action.
Building on the findings, Ukraine has set out further priority actions, including unifying the inter-agency methodology for recording deportation cases, expanding secure distance-learning opportunities for children in the occupied territories, introducing a unified long-term reintegration standard covering the child, the family, the school, and psychological and social services, extending sanctions to those directing and financing the transfer and ‘re-education’ of children, continuing to submit evidence to the International Criminal Court and the Register of Damage for Ukraine, and seeking international access to locations where Ukrainian children are held through the United Nations, UNICEF, the ICRC, and UNESCO.
This expert mission was the sixth to Ukraine since 2022, under the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism, which enables participating States to establish independent expert missions to investigate serious human rights concerns within the territory of a participating State.
Ukraine hosted the mission and fully cooperated, including facilitating an in-country visit during which the experts met with Ukrainian state institutions and members of civil society. The Russian Federation did not respond to the mission’s request for cooperation.
For more information, please contact Ellie Hail, Communications Officer, University of Birmingham, at e.hail@bham.ac.uk or on +44 (0)7966 311 409. You can also contact the press office on +44 (0) 121 414 2772.
Head of Department
A political scientist by background, Stefan Wolff specialises in the management of contemporary security challenges.
