Russia is trying to turn abducted Ukrainian children into Russians – Russian media Meduza

The Russian media has learned how the Kremlin developed an entire system of "re-education" for abducted children from Ukraine.

They are attempting to instill a "Russian identity" in them, persuading them that their parents have died and labeling them as "potential terrorists," according to a Meduza investigation, Rubryka reports.

"The exact number of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia during the war is unknown — according to Kyiv's data, it's almost about 20,000. Russian officials urge Ukrainians to forget about their homeland and convince them that their parents will never come to take them home. The authorities are confident that they can 're-educate' the abducted children," the article says.

According to the publication, the Russian Ministry of Education is the main agency responsible for the "indoctrination" (the process of systematically and orderly influencing an individual to introduce certain ideas, beliefs, or views) of deported Ukrainian children.

The authorities developed a dictionary in 2022 for Russian teachers, which includes words and phrases defined as having "signs of extremism on a nationalist basis" and could be used by deported Ukrainian children. In particular, "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!"; "Rashism"; "Orcs" and so on.

Also, the manual "Prevention of Conflicts, Manifestations of Extremism, and Terrorism in a multicultural educational environment" states that the appearance of "specific slang" in speech or even discussing "political topics" may be a sign that a "destructive ideology" is prevalent among children.

The Ministry of Education notes that abducted children supposedly experienced the "influence" of this ideology simply because they lived in Ukraine. What this "influence" entailed is not specified.

The documents reviewed by the publication indicate that Russian teachers are tasked with "redirecting and shaping the Russian identity of the rising generation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions."

Developers of the manual "Support for Adolescents Who Arrived from conflict zones" warn that abducted children may show "protest," "whining," "distrust of adults," behave aggressively, express "ideas of personal superiority," and generally "experience difficulties in looking at situations that arise through the eyes of a neutral observer."

Russian educators are also advised to directly say that the parents of deported children have died, even if there is no specific data on this.

"Those who make decisions are not ashamed to say that work (with Ukrainian children – Ed.) should be conducted in Russian, everyone there knows it; and if they don't know it well, let them master it," the source in the department says.  "Allegedly, the Constitution says that Russian is the state language: you've come to Russia, speak Russian," the source points out.

According to the source of the publication, employees of the Russian Ministry of Education are afraid of the abducted children from Ukraine. Among themselves, even at the leadership level, employees of the Russian department sometimes refer to these teenagers as "potential terrorists" who "may start opposing" the Russian authorities.

Maria Lvova-Belova, the children's ombudsman to the President of Russia, whose arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court, insists that Russians cannot adopt a child from "new regions." "Only guardianship or foster family" (to return the child to relatives), she assures. But this, as Meduza says, is not true.

The publication notes that the Federal Youth Center, which coordinates ideological work with adolescents outside of schools, operates within the structure of the Ministry of Education. Only the costs of sending center employees amount to millions of rubles: these funds are used for "integration intensive training" for adolescents.

The Center for the Study and Network Monitoring of the Youth Environment, an IT company founded by Putin's order, which received billions of rubles from the budget, monitors Ukrainian children on the Internet.

Its developments, presumably, allow "de-anonymizing" the page of any child and analyzing it down to the likes. As a result of this, the child is assigned a "destructiveness coefficient" and an "opposition coefficient."

In related news, the head of the "Fair Russia – For the Truth" party, Sergei Mironov, and his wife, Inna Varlamova, secretly adopted a 10-month-old girl abducted during the occupation of Kherson by Russian troops and changed her name and citizenship. Currently, the girl is called Marina Mironova.

What we know about the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children

According to official data from the Ukrainian authorities, from February 24, 2022, to Russia, 19,546 children were abducted from Ukraine. 386 children have been returned to Ukraine so far.

Moreover, Ukrainian ambassador Serhii Kyslytsia in the UN Security Council stated that Russia's invasion of Ukraine affected all 7.5 million Ukrainian children.

As Rubryka reported, the Ukrainian government has documented the presence of our children, kidnapped by the Russian Federation, in 57 regions of Russia.

Currently, in Russian "re-education camps," there are about 11,000 Ukrainian children.

After the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova and Russian President Putin, the Russian authorities changed their tactics of deporting Ukrainian children. Representatives of the Russian Federation began using new definitions in official documents to avoid accusations of kidnapping.