(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted by Putin’s Russia and held for political “reeducation,” according to a US-backed report coming out ahead of the first anniversary since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest war in Europe since World War II.
A report by Yale University researchers revealed that at least 6,000 Ukrainian children – and probably many more – have been captured by the Russian troops in the occupied areas of Ukraine and sent to brainwashing camps, Reuters reported, as cited by Newsmax.
The report’s authors have identified at least 43 camps and similar facilities in Russia proper, and the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, where kidnapped Ukrainian children have been kept since Moscow attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The facilities in question are described as part of a “large-scale systematic network” operated by the Russian government, whose victims include Ukrainian children considered orphans by Moscow, those in care of Ukrainian institutions, or children with uncertain custody due to the war.
“The primary purpose of the camp facilities we’ve identified appears to be political reeducation,” one of the report authors, Nathaniel Raymond, told reporters.
The document points out that some kidnapped Ukrainian children have been processed for adoption or foster care in Russia and already live with Russian families.
Raymond stressed that the youngest child identified among those captured by Russia is only four months old and that some of the “reeducation camps” had been giving military training to 14-year-old Ukrainian children. He said there had been no evidence of deploying those children in combat.
The report on the Ukrainian children captured by Putin’s Russia was produced by the Humanitarian Research Lab of the Yale University School of Public Health.
It is part of a US State Department-backed project looking into human rights violations and war crimes committed by Russia during the invasion.
“What is documented in this report is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention,” Raymond said, referring to the agreement that protects civilians in wartime.
He added that could also be evidence that the Russians have committed genocide in Ukraine because the transfer of children for changing, altering, or eliminating national identity could be part of the crime of genocide.
“This network stretches from one end of Russia to the other,” Raymond said, adding that his team believed the Russian camps for Ukrainian children might be more than 43.
Ukrainian prosecutors have already begun investigating the forced deportation of children to bring an international genocide indictment against Russia. Any reports or claims in that regard have been denied by Moscow, whose leader Vladimir Putin until recently also denied that he was waging war.
Last month, a report by a Ukrainian NGO, the Regional Center for Human Rights, said up to 700,000 Ukrainian children may have been forcibly taken to Russia.
Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children — likely many more — in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political reeducation. https://t.co/6ReypXQN6W
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) February 14, 2023
