More than 6,000 Ukrainian children, between the ages of four months and 17 years, have been sent by Russia to re-education camps or the Russian adoption system, according to a study by the Yale University Research Laboratory and funded by the Department of State.
According to that study, Russia has sent more than 6,000 Ukrainian minors to these camps or other facilities since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory on February 24, 2022.
The expert Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of that American laboratory known in English as Yale HRL, indicated in a virtual press conference that they have “evidence” that Russia has violated the Geneva Convention and “other elements” of international law on the rights of minors and their protection in an armed conflict.
According to the investigation, Moscow holds Ukrainian minors in 43 centers, of which 41 were used in the past for children’s summer camps.
Raymond also specified that “78% of these facilities carry out some form of re-education of Ukrainian minors, mainly from areas such as Donetsk and Lugansk”, in eastern Ukraine.
He added that there are other minors who have confirmed that they have been placed in the adoption system and in Russian orphanages.
The expert drew attention to the “massive” geographical scope of these Russian activities, because the centers where Ukrainian minors are sent are in various parts, such as the Crimean peninsula -occupied by Russia-, Moscow, the Black Sea and Siberia. .
And there’s even such a facility in Magadan on Russia’s Pacific coast, “closer to the US mainland than to Moscow,” Raymond noted.
The expert explained that there are two groups of minors: on the one hand, there are those from Donetsk and Lugansk, who make up the bulk of the 6,000 children, whose number has been calculated based on reports on transfers to re-education camps.
The second pertains to what Russia terms “evacuees” from Jerson, Kharkov and Zaporiyia, who, according to Raymond, are being placed in the Russian adoption system.
The US expert stressed that they have been able to identify some 32 centers where “systematic re-education efforts” are being carried out to “expose” Ukrainian minors to military education, in addition to Russian academic education and cultural patriotism.
Another of those responsible for the US study, Caitlin Howarth, explained that when it comes to military training, it is not about minors sitting in a classroom listening to what their instructors say, but that it consists “in handling firearms.”
“We have video and photographic images of (the minors) going through roads with obstacles, in physical training, driving vehicles and weapons…”, he listed.
Raymond concluded that with these acts Russia is taking a comprehensive approach at the government level to re-educate, resettle and carry out forced adoptions of Ukrainian minors.
“This is exactly consistent with what some of the early Nazi trials before the Nuremberg tribunal assumed. There is certainly no confusion in international law: Russia’s actions are illegal and may constitute a war crime and against humanity”, settled.
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