Russia eradicates Ukrainian language in occupied territories — Human Rights Watch

The authorities of the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are engaged in the eradication of the Ukrainian language and curriculum, planting anti-Ukrainian propaganda and Russian as the language of instruction in schools.

Rubryka reports that this is stated in the report of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The 66-page report entitled "Education under Occupation. Forcible Russification of the School Education System in the Occupied Ukrainian Territories" documents violations by the Russian authorities of the norms of international law regarding the right to education in the previously occupied territories of the Kharkiv region and in the territories of other regions that remain under occupation.

It is noted that the Russian authorities have changed the school curriculum and persecuted the employees of the education system who refuse to do so, threatening them, depriving them of their freedom, and even using torture. Human Rights Watch also found that the occupation authorities threatened parents whose children studied remotely using the Ukrainian program.

History textbooks that justify the Russian invasion and depict Ukraine under the current government as a "neo-Nazi state" are used for teaching in the Russian educational program implemented in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

Also, teaching the Ukrainian language is strictly limited in this program.

HRW notes that, among other things, Russian-imposed changes in the education system in the occupied territories violate other international human rights standards, including the prohibition of war propaganda, the right of a child to be educated in their native language, and the right of parents to choose their children's education.

Ukrainian children under occupation also undergo initial military training as part of the school curriculum.

The occupying Russian authorities also used:

• coercion,
• imprisonment,
• abuse,
• torture

This was done to force Ukrainian teachers to go to work or hand over personal files of students and other school documents to the occupiers.

Human rights defenders of the organization emphasize that such measures violate the rules of international conflicts, which prohibit the occupying state from changing the laws in force in the occupied territory, and international standards in the field of human rights, which relate to the right to education.

"Russia must stop depriving Ukrainian children of the right to education guaranteed by international standards. It must immediately stop attempts to Russify the education system and its use for political propaganda in the occupied territories of Ukraine," said Bill van Esveld, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's children's rights department.

During the study, HRW interviewed 42 teachers and employees of educational institutions in the Kharkiv region after the liberation of part of the region in September 2022. It also spoke with teachers who were displaced or fled from the territories currently under partial occupation in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.

According to Ukrainian experts' estimates, about one million schoolchildren are in the territories occupied by Russia. According to information provided to Human Rights Watch by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine, more than 62,400 children in the occupied territories continue distance learning according to the Ukrainian program.

What is known about the re-education of Ukrainian children by Russia

Russia finances a significant number of programs aimed at "re-educating" Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories.

As reported, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Russians are intensifying the forced planting of Russian aggressive ideology.

In addition, the national resistance reported that the Russian occupiers were detaining children in the temporarily occupied territories to pressure their parents.

It was also reported that the Russians are recruiting Crimean schoolchildren to the Unarmy (a derivative of the Russian young army).

Russians also organized a camp of the Unarmy paramilitary movement of the DNR group in the captured Melekino near Mariupol.

In addition, the occupation authorities plan to teach children to assemble drones in labor lessons, creating a special educational module for this purpose.

In addition, in the Kherson region on the temporarily occupied territory, the process of forming specialized classes in which "policemen" will be trained has begun in schools.