War crimes
One of Vladimir Putin’s strategies during his brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has been to ensure that Russians only hear one version of reality. His.
This week, the world learned that he’s also applying that tactic to Ukrainian children.
The Russian government has put thousands of Ukrainian children into what the Kremlin pitched as “recreation camps,” but in actuality are re-education facilities aimed at Russifying the children with a pro-Moscow lens into Russian culture, history and society, according to a report released by Yale University and the Conflict Observatory, a program created by the State Department to document war crimes committed by Russian forces and their proxies in Ukraine.
The children are between 4 months and 17 years old. Some boys have been given military training, including instruction on driving trucks and handling firearms. Russia began taking Ukrainian children to the camps in February 2022, and as of January, relocation of children to the facilities was still happening, according to the report.
Putin was already vulnerable to an array of war crime charges. In the Ukrainian town of Bucha, Ukrainian officials and witnesses found evidence of Russian troops carrying out summary executions of dozens of men in civilian clothes, some with hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to their heads. In the southern city of Mariupol, Russian forces targeted and destroyed a maternity hospital.
This latest inhuman act, however, is uniquely heinous. Putin is turning children into fodder for his political ambitions.
Circumstances behind the relocation of children to Russian camps vary. Some parents consented to handing over their children to Russian authorities, though the report states that often the consent was given under duress.
Other children were taken from Ukrainian institutions and deported to Russia so they could be adopted by Russian families or placed in Russian foster care. Some children were returned to their parents after re-education, while others were never returned and their status remains unknown.
According to the report, Russia’s actions could constitute a violation of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of a Child, a legally binding international pact on the treatment of children.
Putin may claim he’s saving these children by removing them from the theater of war. But that’s patently wrong—he put Ukraine’s children in harm’s way by illegally invading their sovereign nation. He certainly did not think about children when he bombed the maternity hospital in Mariupol or when Russian artillery shells rained on hundreds of Ukrainian schools.
We don’t expect Putin to suddenly realize the indefensible depravity of his re-education camps. We do, however, expect the international community to hold the former KGB agent accountable when the time is right.
For the time being, the U.S. and NATO must focus on helping Ukraine win the war and preserve its sovereignty. At some point, though, the moment will come for the international community to judge the breadth and impact of this man’s war crimes.
When that time arrives, Putin using Ukrainian children as pawns in his self-serving war should be integral to that assessment.