The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) has concluded that children from Ukraine have been taken to at least 210 facilities inside Russia and temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This report is the fourth in a series by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL) examining Russia’s transfer, re-education, and militarization of children from Ukraine since 2022.
Children from Ukraine were subjected to re-education at more than half (62.9%) of the facilities and underwent militarization in at least 18% of facilities identified by HRL. More than half of the facilities which children from Ukraine were taken are managed by the Russian government.
HRL can conclude that Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time. While this study does not answer the question of how many children from Ukraine are currently in Russia’s custody, it does reveal the logistical and operational capacity committed to Russifying children taken from their home communities in Ukraine. This is the first detailed effort to study the number, types, and roles of locations utilized by Russia’s federal government, particularly regarding re-education and militarization, in efforts to Russify Ukraine’s children.