200 very young Sevastopol schoolchildren have been ‘sworn in’ to the Russian Defence Ministry’s ‘Youth Army’ [Yunarmia], a formation which has been likened to Hitlerjugend and other “formations in which young people became tools of totalitarian regimes in Europe”

The scale of repression and the number of political prisoners rose massively in 2017 and 100 children are now growing up without their fathers. Many were present when armed and masked men burst in to their homes and are deeply scarred by experiences no child should go through

Five teenagers, as young as 15 when seized, have been held in captivity in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] for well over a year.  Both the DPR militants and Russia made propaganda uses out of forced ‘confessions’ from the young lads immediately after their seizure, but appear to be simply holding them imprisoned

Russia’s Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) has issued instructions to check out history textbooks for their coverage of events in Ukraine in 2013-14, with the main concern being Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea, which Moscow calls ‘the reunification of Crimea’.

The wording of the Ukrainian legislation states that the language of instruction in the first four grades may be in a minority language. By grade five, however, only two or more subjects can be taught in any of the languages of the EU

Children waving machine guns or ‘thanking’ a monument to the Russian soldiers who invaded Crimea are more than tasteless Russian propaganda performances. Russia’s occupation of Crimea has brought not only political repression, but also war propaganda and the deliberate militarization of public awareness, with children particularly targeted.

A special charitable action took place in Kyiv on Dec 11 to raise money and awareness of the youngest victims of Russia’s mounting repression in occupied Crimea.

While it is Russia’s imprisonment of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz and others that gets reported, there are several times more victims, and many of them very small

Not content with jailing Crimean Tatar rights activist Emir-Huseyn Kuku in occupied Crimea, Russia is now terrorizing his children, using offensively cynical excuses. This is not the first time that the family has been targeted, and 9-year-old Bekir and his 5-year-old sister Safiyeka are terrified

Two days after Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas released disturbing video footage of 7 young lads allegedly ‘arrested’ for acts of SBU-orchestrated sabotage, Russia’s Investigative Committee has become involved, but not, as you might have hoped, by calling on the Moscow-controlled militants to stop tormenting kids as young as 15

Militants from the so-called ‘Donbas people’s republic’ [DNR] have ‘arrested’ 7 teenagers and claim that they were blowing up civilian and military targets for Ukraine’s SBU [Security Service]. The reports, backed only by videos of the lads supposedly ‘confessing’, are chillingly similar to Russia’s recent claim that Ukraine had ‘attacked’ Ukrainian Crimea under Russian occupation.

The Center for Innovative Education, better known as or Pro.Svit, works to provide Ukraine’s teachers with tools for professional and personal growth

They look for ‘dissidents’ early in Russian-occupied Crimea. On May 27, the day before an exam, FSB officers turned up at a school in Feodosia to grill Crimean Tatar 9th grade students on possible ‘incorrect’ thinking.

A ruthless cookie-baking overlord named Fashiston dressed in the colors of the American flag. An evil woman named Gnuland handing out treats to masked men controlled by a pig-headed Ukrainian. And a kind, well-dressed man called Papa who has a striking resemblance to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

18 months after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, not one class of the over 18 thousand children beginning school on Sept 1, will be with instruction in Ukrainian. Even in traditionally Crimean Tatar schools, tuition is now in Russian or Crimean Tatar, with Russian predominating

In schools within the territory of the so-called ‘Luhansk people’s republic’, students will study “the history of the war in Donbas and the emergence of the Republic”. School students will unfortunately be unlikely to critically assess a narrative in which the villains are supposedly a ‘Kyiv Junta’ full of anti-Semitic radicals whom the leaders of the ‘republics’ dismiss as “pathetic Jews”

345 children from the Donbas and Luhansk oblasts have been adopted since 2014. this reflecting an increase undoubtedly due to the military conflict. Evacuated children’s homes in areas under militant control are filling up again, and the chances for those children’s adoption appear to be nil.

Crimean orphans are being forced to take Russian citizenship. Many have lost the chance to be adopted or to live in a more family-pitched environment with the system of adoption built over many years being destroyed

The education ministry is currently looking for appropriate premises which would be suitable for moving the university following the seizure of its main building by Kremlin-backed militants

Attempts to seize control of the universities in Donetsk and Luhansk are continuing with the Kremlin-backed militants not always aware what is studied in the institutes they burst into with machine guns