Russia Plans to Take 4,096 Ukrainian Children from Kherson to Camps

The occupiers from Russia plan to take more than 4,000 children from the left-bank part of Kherson region to rest in camps.

According to Mist, this was reported by the occupation Minister of Education and Science of Kherson region Lyudmyla Kovtun. According to her, 77 educational institutions are on the list for departure, and the total number of children to be sent to the camps is 4,096.

The occupiers do not specify which camps the children will be taken to. However, they note that last year 1.1 thousand children from Kherson region were in Artek.

"Schoolchildren will have excursions, talks about important issues, career guidance and sports events," the occupation ministry said in a statement.

It is in the annexed Crimea that children in the Russian-occupied Artek recreation center are forced to spend at least six hours a week producing aid for the Russian army. The children have to assemble drones, weave camouflage nets and make trench candles.

In total, during the summer of 2024, the occupation authorities took more than 3,000 children from the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson region to camps in remote regions of Russia under the guise of health and cultural programs. According to the Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, 3310 children were moved to places where they were forced to participate in activities aimed at militarization and forced assimilation. These events included defense and sports training camps in Vologda and the University Changes program in Tula. Russians actively used excursions, sports competitions, and workshops to introduce elements of Russian culture and history.

Lubinets emphasized that such actions are part of Russia's strategy to destroy the national identity of Ukrainian children, aimed at preparing a generation that could become an instrument of struggle against Ukraine in the future. Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer at the Regional Center for Human Rights, also said that the re-education of Ukrainian teenagers and youth is very well integrated into the policy of the Russian Federation, and it is carried out by bodies of different levels - federal, regional, occupation and even Ukrainian collaborators.

Олеся Ланцман