By Galina Korol | 2024-04-08

KYIV -- The Russians are setting up propaganda centers at Ukrainian schools in the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson province, according to local leaders.

In these supposed "museums of the SVO" (special military operation), children see a distorted reality where the occupiers are depicted as "liberators," the National Resistance Center, a Ukrainian guerrilla movement, wrote on the Telegram messaging app on April 2.

SVO is a Russian euphemism for the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

These "museums" are geared toward elementary schoolchildren and are being created forcibly in all schools located in the occupied part of Kherson province, it said, adding that all pupils are required to visit.

The occupying authorities are "organizing visits for children and teenagers with so-called heroes of the special military operation, who show up at schools in masks and talk about how they're liberating Ukraine from the fascists," said Yuriy Sobolevsky, the first deputy chairman of the Kherson Provincial Council.

"The number of events like these in the occupied territories is rising by the day," he told Kontur.

In addition, the Russians are starting cadet classes for Ukrainian youth and engaging in a wide-reaching propaganda campaign encouraging them to join the All-Russian Military Patriotic Social Movement, or "Youth Army," a youth organization that Russia's Defense Ministry created in 2016. Children as young as eight participate in it.

"They dress the kids in a military uniform, take them to training grounds with Russian soldiers and then give them weapons and teach them how to use them," Sobolevsky said.

"At the same time, they call all of this 'patriotic education' in reference to the joint fight against some fascist regime."

Militarizing youth

All these actions are an indisputable violation of international law, according to Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer for the Regional Center for Human Rights.

"This is essentially propaganda for serving in the armed forces of an enemy state, and it's a violation of international humanitarian law and the articles of the Geneva Convention," she told Kontur.

Russia's laws on education, caregiving and guardianship include precise provisions saying that such educational processes are aimed at raising "real" citizens of Russia, Rashevska said.

"And what proves that the citizen is genuine is that he [or she] is willing to die for Russia in any war, won't oppose serving in the military and will learn from a young age how to use a weapon," she added.

As an example of how Russia is militarizing children, Rashevska pointed to an interview with a Ukrainian teenager who lives in occupied territory.

"I saw a video of a boy from occupied Donetsk province. He's in the Youth Army movement and is wearing some medals. He's 17 years old and he talks about how before the Youth Army movement he had no desire to fight, but now he wants to be a professional soldier," she said. "In other words, the kids are demonstrating themselves how this process works."

Children are particularly vulnerable to such propaganda under the current circumstances, said Elena Ryhalskaya (Olena Ryhalska), a psychotherapist from Kyiv.

"Children aren't yet fully developed. Psychologically, they're an empty vessel that needs to be filled," she said.

If they lack sources of information and the Russians fill the vacuum, "the children will unwittingly identify with what is being offered to them," she said.

All children need emotional support from a trusted adult, whether a parent, grandparent or teacher, she added. Unfortunately, officials in the occupiers' education system understand this reality and are taking advantage of it.

Indoctrinating abducted children

It is hard to say exactly how many Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken from Ukraine to the enemy state during the war, Rashevska said.

"Official Ukraine says that 19,546 children have been forcibly removed," she said. "I'm guessing that the number of children hovers in the several tens of thousands because we're going to continue to hear about more and more children Russia took away, deported and handed over to Russian families."

Russia is trying to "indoctrinate" the abducted Ukrainian children and place them under strict digital surveillance, independent news outlet Meduza reported March 11.

To do so, the Russian Education Ministry has produced special glossaries of expressions that children might use in conversation, it reported.

For example, "'Glory to Ukraine!' and 'Glory to the heroes!' are nationalist greetings, 'Katsap' and 'vatnik' are derogatory terms referring to ethnic Russians ... The term 'orcs' is used by Russophobes and extremists as an offensive name for Russian soldiers."

In addition, the ministry recommends that teachers not show empathy but rather tell children directly that their relatives died in Ukraine.

"Don't say 'Don't worry, they're in a better place' or 'They're looking down on you from heaven' ... Speak honestly with the child about his loved ones perishing or his home being destroyed ... Say directly that they have died," Meduza wrote, quoting one of the guide's recommendations.

This approach to reeducating young Ukrainians was developed by numerous specialists, said Ryhalskaya.

"I think their psychologists are developing these programs on the basis of first instilling profound fear, and then offering a way to be rescued," she said. "When a child is afraid, you can create anything you want from his [or her] psyche."

Rashevska agreed.

"This is an additional deliberate way to traumatize a child, and they're doing this so the child becomes scared and useful -- so he [or she] thinks that nothing depends on him anymore, that he's alone and no one needs him, and then here's Russia offering him something from its big, strong shoulder," she said.

Ukraine faces a host of challenges in repatriating Ukrainian children, she said, adding that the main stumbling block "is that Russia has no intention of giving our children back."