By Olha Hembik | 2025-06-11

WARSAW -- Buried deep in Russia and occupied Ukraine, a network of covert camps is training abducted Ukrainian children to become tomorrow's soldiers, part of a chilling strategy to weaponize a generation.

A Lisbon-based tech firm, Hala Systems, identified 136 of these militarized institutions, according to Toronto's The Globe and Mail on May 29. The findings shed new light on Russia's alleged use of ideological indoctrination and military grooming in what critics are calling a modern-day gulag system.

Using a combination of cellphone tracking, satellite imagery, social media analysis and open-source intelligence, Hala Systems traced the locations and activities of children forcibly taken from Ukraine. Many of the data were difficult to access and required advanced technological tools, the company said.

The research drew from firsthand accounts by children rescued and repatriated by the humanitarian group Save Ukraine.

Global Affairs Canada funded the investigation with a 2 million CAD ($1.46 million) grant.

Training for 8-year-olds

Ukrainian children, illegally deported to Russia, are held in camps from Crimea to Novosibirsk, spanning over 3,300km, researchers report. These children, some as young as eight, are detained in military bases, schools, hospitals and hotels, including six bases of the Youth Army, a state-backed group providing military training.

In these camps, children learn to shoot, disarm mines, dig trenches and conduct military drills. Evidence includes a Hala Systems photo of Ukrainian children drilling in occupied Melitopol and cellphone data tracking children marching in formation.

A post on X by a Ukraine-war-tracking account summarized the findings of Hala Systems: "They undergo tactical training, learn to shoot and collect mines." The post attributed the words to Ashley Jordan, Hala Systems' director of rules, policies and human rights.

Stories as evidence

Ukraine is looking for more than 20,000 missing Ukrainian children since Russia's full-scale invasion, with 1.6 million living under occupation and exposed to Russian propaganda, Save Ukraine reports.

The organization has repatriated 663 children, whose testimonies document Russia's crimes. Marina Ostapenko, Save Ukraine's spokeswoman, described the training that 15-year-old Olia, formerly of occupied territory,. underwent with the Youth Army.

"She went through basic army training for providing medical assistance, learned to assemble and take apart an assault rifle and shot blanks," Ostapenko told Kontur. Olia's classmates swore oaths to Russia, she added.

Other children, like 14-year-old Sofiia and 12-year-old Vasyl, learned to use assault rifles.

Russian instructors forced 25% of the repatriated children or their peers to march and handle rifles, told 90% of them that Ukraine's Russian-occupied territory was lost forever and mistreated 80% of them for being Ukrainian, Save Ukraine found.

Cultural genocide

Mykola Kuleba, Save Ukraine co-founder, calls this abuse "cultural genocide," saying Russia is "shaping a generation of children who hate Ukraine without even knowing why."

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian teens from Donbas whom the Russian army drafted have been killed fighting against their own country, he said.

"These are young people who since childhood were programmed and raised with propaganda all around them. These kids died without even realizing that they were Ukrainian," he said.

Kuleba shared the story of Ivan, a boy from Luhansk who did not become aware that he was Ukrainian until after the full-scale invasion. Later, he ran away from his pro-Russian family to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

"Now Ivan is working with other children living under the occupation. He helps them understand who they really are," he said.

Remembering the children

On June 1, the International Day for the Protection of Children, Ukrainians brought toys to Warsaw's Castle Square as part of a demonstration.

The event was dedicated to children suffering from Russian aggression. Attendees paid tribute to those minors whom the occupiers had abducted and had illegally transferred to Russia.

"The children are taken away without their parents' consent, often under the guise of evacuation," said Nadiia Vyrebska of Euromaidan-Warsaw, which organized the demonstration.

"This is an attempt to wipe out national identity and turn our children into a weapon against their own state," she told Kontur.

Euromaidan-Warsaw activists hope for punishment for the culprits who deported Ukrainian children to Russia.

"The first steps have already been taken," Vyrebska said, referring to the arrest warrants that the International Criminal Court issued in 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights.

No efficient official mechanism exists to repatriate those children now trapped in Russia, said Kuleba.

"The Russian authorities aren't showing any desire to give the kidnapped children back," he added, noting that Lvova-Belova said two years ago that more than 700,000 Ukrainian children were registered in different Russian provinces.

"To this day Ukraine doesn't know who these kids are. As soon as Russia finds out that we're trying to find and get back a certain child, the child immediately disappears," Kuleba said.

"They might be adopted, or their name might be changed, or they might be transferred to another province or hidden in boarding schools. Then it becomes almost impossible to find them."