Ukrainian children as a human resource for Russia’s future war

Serving military draft notices well in advance

In the temporarily occupied territories (TOT) of Ukraine under the control of the Russian Federation, teenagers are being issued draft notices for 2025. Donbas Realities telegram channel reported this on July 20.

“After the medical examination, they arrived from the military registration and enlistment office (MREO) and started serving us military service registration certificates,” recalls a boy who managed to leave the Russia-occupied area. Along with the military service registration certificate, the Russian occupiers also handed a document stating that he had to report to the military registration and enlistment office in 2025. After that, the guy’s family started looking for ways to leave for a free Ukraine. “I didn’t want to die for Russia’s interests, I wanted to live,” the young man emphasized.

Myroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer at the Save Ukraine charity foundation, told journalists how Russian MREO representatives and the active Russian military came to the above-mentioned boy’s school. The Russian military began to tell the children how good it was to serve in the Russian army and kill Ukrainians, the lawyer emphasized. At the end of the speech, the Russian military handed the entire class draft notices for 2025. “They gave them this small Russian booklet, which confirms that they [teenagers] are already liable for call-up and must ’go and die for Putin,’” Myroslava says.

From ‘health camps’ directly to the Russian army

In addition to the early issuance of draft notices, Ukrainian children are taken to the ranks of the Russian army directly from the so-called “health camps.” A young man who spoke to Donbas Realities journalists said he knew about 20 such children. According to him, the children were first taken to a “health camp” in the occupied Crimea. The teenagers were not released from this camp, allegedly because there were ongoing hostilities in their hometowns and villages. For some time, the children lived in the camp, and then they were moved to a sanatorium. When the teenagers turned 18, the occupiers registered them for military service and took them to the Russian army, the boy says.

Yulia Sydorenko, head of the Hope and Recovery Center, also talked about the children who were returned to Ukraine from the so-called “health camps.” According to her, Ukrainian children are subjected to both psychological and physical violence in Russian “health camps.” “It’s terrible when a 15- or 16-year-old child comes to you and says: “After what I’ve seen, I don’t want to live,” Sydorenko emphasized.

Earlier, journalists from The Telegraph confirmed that in the so-called “health camps,” Russians try to re-educate Ukrainian children, and if they resist, they are beaten.

According to Ms. Sydorenko, many parents with 16- and 17-year-old children are now returning to free Ukraine because they want to save their children from the Russian army. The number of such people is growing every month, says Sydorenko.

Illegal mobilization and forced passportization

Russia has long been trying to involve Ukrainian children living in Russia-occupied areas in the war against their own country. Here are just a few cases that KHPG has previously covered. In June of this year, Hromadske Radio reported that schoolchildren from the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk, and Donetsk oblasts were taken to the Volgograd oblast of Russia, where they were supposed to pass firearms training. In January 2024, Belarusian state media confirmed that 35 Ukrainian children living in the temporarily occupied town of Antratsyt in Luhansk Oblast were sent to the Belarusian city of Mogilev, where they were to undergo “training” at the Ministry of Emergency Situations center.

There were reports In December 2023 that the Russian occupation forces wanted to register teenagers living in Mariupol. In general, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Russia is actively building a network of institutions that promote joining the Russian army and glorify the war against Ukraine. The Russian Federation’s use of open, covert, and forced mobilization in the TOT violates international humanitarian law, particularly Article 51 of the IV Geneva Convention. According to this article, The Occupying Power may not compel the civilian population of the occupied territory to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces. No pressure or propaganda which aims at securing voluntary enlistment is permitted, and conscription of residents of the temporarily occupied territories into the ranks of the invading army is a war crime.

In turn, Article 45 of the Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, clearly states: “It is forbidden to compel the inhabitants of occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile Power.”. Nevertheless, Russia is constantly trying to force the residents of the TOT to fight against their own country. The Russian Federation resorts to the unacceptable measures: It puts pressure on prisoners and threatens parents who do not want to give their children Russian citizenship. On July 19 this year, when 12 children who lived in the TOT of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts were returned to Ukraine, Ukrainian ombudsmen Dmytro Lubinets spoke about the pressure the children and their families experienced. The occupiers “forcibly imposed Russian passports,” without which TOT residents became disenfranchised and lost all social guarantees or medical care. Without Russian passports, “doctors do not even accept children with congenital disabilities who need careful attention,” the ombudsman emphasized. Mr. Lubinets also confirmed that the occupiers offer to send children for so-called “rehabilitation,” which is often deportation or forced displacement.

In addition, RF representatives deliberately send Ukrainian children to Russian camps, force their parents to personally follow them, and then agitate Ukrainian families to stay in remote regions of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Russians are settled in the TOT. In this way, Russia is changing the population composition of the temporarily occupied territories.

As a reminder, at the end of December 2023, KHPG submitted a new Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court under Article 15 of the Rome Statute concerning the crime of genocide allegedly committed during the war in Ukraine in the form of the forcibly transferring Ukrainian children to Russia. This Communication aims to persuade the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to reclassify the already opened proceedings from Article Eight of the Rome Statute (“war crimes”) to Article Six (“crime of genocide”).