“Meduza” told about methods for “re-education” of Ukrainian children

The Russian authorities are creating a system of “re-education” and digital control over children taken from Ukraine to Russia after the beginning of the large-scale invasion of this country. This is stated in the investigation of the publication “Meduza”, which examined the documents of the Russian Ministry of Education, devoted to the so-called integration of Ukrainian children, and spoke on the condition of anonymity with officials of this department. Documents and officials confirm that this is a program of indoctrination of Ukrainian children, who are instilled with the idea that they will no longer return to their families. At the same time, officials are afraid that Ukrainian children will maintain a negative attitude towards Russia and in the future will oppose the Russian authorities.

It was the mass removal of children, which the Ukrainian authorities call deportation, that caused the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova.

In the documents of the Ministry of Education, in particular, it is stated that Russian teachers face the task of “reorienting and establishing the Russian identity of the younger generation” of the occupied territories of Ukraine, in particular, educating them on the basis of Russian “spiritual and moral values” and getting rid of “destructive ideology.” In particular, this “ideology” is discussed in the manual entitled “Prevention of conflicts, manifestations of extremism and terrorism in a multicultural educational environment” and in the dictionary attached to it, which contains words and expressions that Ukrainian children can use and that the Russian authorities consider a manifestation of nationalism ideologies, including the greeting “Glory to Ukraine” and negative assessments of Russia and Russians.

In the second manual entitled “Accompanying teenagers who have arrived from war zones”, such children can show “protest”, “capriciousness”, “distrust of adults” and generally not look at events “through the eyes of a neutral observer”. The manual says that if the child’s parents have died or gone missing, the teacher must directly tell the child about their death and let him “experience the emotion”. The reason for the resettlement of children from Ukraine should be explained by the “complication of the geopolitical situation.”

“Russian identity” must be formed during school education, the documents state. As a result of training, the student should feel “a sense of pride for his country, patriotism, a sense of belonging to the country.” It is not specified in the recommendations which state it is proud of.

A number of teachers with whom “Meduza” spoke note that in practice these methods are not always used.

According to one of the employees of the Ministry of Education, employees are “discussing among themselves that Ukrainian children are potential terrorists.” “We are not morons – and we understand that Russia did not come to Ukraine “with peace and kindness”. And that the children who were taken out of there into a hostile environment can start to react,” said the interlocutor of the publication.

“Meduza” also studied the reports of the Ministry of Education “on the identification and placement of orphans and children left without parental care” for the three quarters of 2023 and, as it claims, found evidence of the adoption of children from the occupied Ukrainian territories, – according to the documents, it is about how at least dozens of children. Lvova-Belova previously stated that Russians cannot adopt a child from these territories, only take him under guardianship.

The Meduza investigation also described a joint project of the Ministry of Education and the Center for the Study and Network Monitoring of the Youth Environment, which monitors the behavior of teenagers in social networks, providing opportunities for deanonymization of their accounts. According to one of the employees of the Ministry of Education, the CISM “helps our authorities identify resistance activists, opponents of the Russian government.” In 2023, the Center received 621 million rubles from the budget, notes Sibir.Realii.

The Federal Center for the Development of Youth Socialization Programs, created on the initiative of the Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, also operates on the basis of the Ministry of Education. He is engaged in the integration of Ukrainian children into the Russian society: for example, he conducts trainings for teenagers, at which children are told about the “achievements of our country”. In 2023, the Ministry of Education launched an initiative to create a “ministry of orphans” that would deal with children from Ukraine, among others. According to the investigation, former children’s ombudsman Anna Kuznetsova may head the ministry.

• According to Ukraine, more than 20 thousand Ukrainian children appeared in Russia and the occupied territories during the war.
• In March 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Lvova-Belova. They are suspected of committing war crimes – forcible deportations and displacement of the population, in particular children, from the occupied territories of Ukraine.