Ex-minister of Kherson region occupants abducted Ukrainian children

In Kherson, the "Minister of Education" of the occupiers was sentenced for supporting the pseudo-referendum and propaganda of the region's annexation. He not only agitated for the region's accession to the aggressor country, but was also involved in the transportation of Ukrainian children to Crimea and Russia under the guise of rehabilitation.

This is evidenced by the verdict of the Kherson City Court.

According to the investigation, in September 2022, he held the position of the so-called "Minister of Education" of the occupation administration of Kherson region and actively contributed to the illegal referendum on the region's accession to Russia.

According to the DGU, this is Mykhailo Rodikov, who was responsible for implementing the Russian policy of transferring Ukrainian children from Kherson to the temporarily occupied territories and Russia under the pretext of "rehabilitation," "recreation" and "integration into the Russian cultural and educational space."

The court found that the official forced employees of educational institutions to participate in a pseudo-referendum and agitated to vote for Kherson region to join the Russian Federation. In addition, he issued an order on early school holidays from September 22 to 28, 2022, which actually allowed the use of educational institutions to organize illegal voting.

Special attention in the case file was paid to his public speeches. In particular, on September 23, 2022, during an event at the occupation "Ministry of Education" in Kherson, he called on residents to vote for the region's accession to Russia and stated that people had allegedly "waited 31 years for justice to prevail. The court considered these statements as public calls to change the borders of Ukraine's territory and justify the occupation.

The case involves dozens of videos from Telegram, YouTube, and Russian social media. In them, the defendant promoted Russian educational standards, propagated Russian narratives, supported the annexation of Crimea, and spoke of "common Russian land."

One of the witnesses said that the armed men threatened the accounting staff and demanded cooperation with the occupation authorities.

According to Evocation.info, Mikhail Rodikov was born in 1958 in the Moscow region. He graduated from pedagogical, law, and management universities and received a PhD in history.

He built his career in the Russian bureaucracy: he worked in the administration of the Ozersky district and the Ministry of Education of the Moscow region. In 2015, he headed the so-called "Department of Education" of occupied Sevastopol, but three years later he was fired after mass poisonings in children's camps. Later he became the deputy head of the Kashira administration.

He was also included in the sanctions lists of the EU, the UK, the US, and a number of other countries. He may face an international tribunal and responsibility for crimes against children and signs of genocide. It was his decisions that led to thousands of children from the Kherson region being taken to the occupied Crimea and Russia under the guise of "recreational trips."

Parents were assured that their children would go to the camps for only a few weeks, but in the end, they stayed away from home for more than six months. The families were told that the children could not return due to the allegedly "dangerous situation" in the right-bank part of Kherson region.

The children themselves were made to believe that their parents had abandoned them, intimidated by being placed in foster families or boarding schools. In the camps, they were forced to learn the Russian anthem and participate in events with Russian flags and St. George's ribbons. Children were punished for expressing their Ukrainian identity: they were isolated, their phones were taken away, and cases of violence, beatings and sexual assault were reported.

The court sentenced him to 15 years in prison. In determining the term, the court took into account the previous sentence of the Kherson City Court of May 19, 2025, and partially added the unspent sentence.

The court also found Alla Barkhatnova, the former "minister" of labor and social policy of the occupation administration of Kherson region, guilty of collaboration. The woman, who worked for the Russian authorities, was involved not only in building the occupation administration system but also in the deportation of Ukrainian children.

Анна Літман