The Russian authorities are creating a system of "re-education" and digital control of children deported from Ukraine — they are told that they will never return home.
This is stated in the investigation of the publication "Meduza", which studied the documents of the Russian Ministry of Education and spoke anonymously with officials of the department.
It was the mass deportation of children from Ukraine that became the basis for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Putin and the Commissioner for Childrenʼs Rights in Russia Maria Lvova-Belova.
The documents of the Ministry of Education state that Russian teachers are faced with the task of "reorienting and forming 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."
This "ideology", in particular, 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. There are words and expressions that can be used by Ukrainian children and which Russian the authorities consider it a manifestation of nationalist ideology, including the greeting "Glory to Ukraine" and negative assessments of Russia and Russians.
Another manual, entitled "Economics of teenagers who have arrived from war zones", states that such children may show "protest", "moodyness", "distrust of adults" and generally not look at events "through the eyes of a neutral observer". The manual says: if the childʼs parents have died or gone missing, the teacher should 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."
A child should develop a "Russian identity" during his studies at school. Several teachers with whom "Meduza" spoke note that in practice these methods are not always used, and Ukrainian children are considered "potential terrorists."
"We are not morons, and we understand that Russia did not come to Ukraine ʼwith peace and goodnessʼ. And that the children, who were taken from there to a hostile environment, can start to resist," said the interlocutor.
"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 at least dozens of children. Lvova-Belova previously stated that Russians cannot adopt a child from these territories, only take her into custody.
According to Ukraine, more than 20 000 Ukrainian children ended up in Russia and the occupied territories during the war.