Schools in occupied Ukraine: Seeking to turn children into Russian soldiers, By Ghanna Mamonova
- +The Beginning of the Occupation
- +Adult Pressure and Children’s Protest
Svitlana’s account of life under Russian occupation and education in a Russian school reflects what members of TRP’s legal team describe as “indoctrination”: a non-legal term encompassing multiple concurrent human rights violations, including infringements on the rights to education, freedom of thought, and identity… The educational process is entirely oriented around a Russian worldview and geopolitical ambitions. If children resist, they are punished. Children are raised on the principles of blind faith and obedience, deprived of the right to identity. Simultaneously, intolerance towards everything Ukrainian — the environment in which they were born and raised — is instilled.
Svitlana’s account of life under Russian occupation and education in a Russian school reflects what members of TRP’s legal team describe as “indoctrination”: a non-legal term encompassing multiple concurrent human rights violations, including infringements on the rights to education, freedom of thought, and identity… The educational process is entirely oriented around a Russian worldview and geopolitical ambitions.
1.6 million Ukrainian children live in territories occupied by Russia, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. In kindergartens and schools, they are forbidden from mentioning Ukraine, or anything connected to Ukrainian culture. They are taught to handle weapons to be turned into the Russia Soldiers.
The Reckoning Project – a global team of Ukrainian and international journalists and lawyers – is documenting war and atrocity crimes by Russia. This story by Ghanna Mamomova tells about Svitlana who chose to escape her home village in the occupied Kherson region.
It is a cold spring in Kyiv this year. Fruit trees blossom in rain and hail. During a walk through the Ukrainian capital, 18-year-old Svitlana keeps reminding us — her face cannot be photographed. She turns her back to the camera and hides her profile behind long hair.
The girl is afraid to be photographed, to give her surname, or to reveal any details by which Russian security services could identify her. Half a year earlier, in the autumn of 2025, Svitlana packed a warm jacket, jeans, a few dresses, and left her home village in Kherson region, which had been seized by Russian forces in 2022.
The journey that once could have taken a day by car to Ukraine’s capital lasted ten days. In the very first year of the full-scale invasion, the Russians blocked all exits from the occupied part of Ukraine, except through the Russian border.
Svitlana travelled through ruined Mariupol, then through Russian cities, and after that Belarus.
When she crossed the Ukrainian border, she understood that the danger had passed for her — but not for her loved ones. Her mother and grandfather remained in occupation.
In occupation, laws don’t work, everyone is intimidated and can be arrested, accused of pro-Ukrainian views. “I’m constantly afraid for my family,” she said.
At 18 years old, Svitlana has done nothing wrong. Her fear arose solely because for three years has she lived under Russian occupation and attended school. There, Russian authorities re-educate Ukrainian children to make them loyal to Russia and forget about Ukraine. Her memories of this are documented by researchers at The Reckoning Project — which has been collecting evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine since 2022. The project’s archive consists of over a thousand interviews.
The Beginning of the Occupation
On the first day of the full-scale invasion, 24 February, 2022, Svitlana woke up to the sound of explosions, like every Ukrainian family. Her parents told her that Russia was dropping missiles on Ukraine, and that their tanks were entering their village, so going outside was forbidden and school was cancelled. Svitlana was 14 years old at that time and was in the ninth grade.
The girl spent the whole day secretly peering through the window and she saw Russian tanks driving past her house. Fifty military vehicles were moving in a single column, and there were several such columns. The movement of military equipment continued for several days without stopping.
There were battles on the outskirts of the village. Adults said that tanks were entering the village and shelling the food stores, Svitlana recalled.
Food and medicine disappeared almost immediately. People stopped going outside. Everyone hid in cellars because the shelling did not stop.
“For some time we didn’t even have bread. Then the Russians started bringing in their own products. But there was little of it and the prices were astronomical,” Svitlana stated.
To buy a single loaf of bread, Svitlana and her mother stood in line for several hours.
Adult Pressure and Children’s Protest
Svitlana returned to school only on 1 September, 2022. She got to the first bell and saw that the school courtyard had been decorated with the flags of Russia and the already non-existent Soviet Union. In her classroom hung a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with Russia’s coat of arms and anthem. Ukrainian state symbols and Ukrainian language inscriptions had disappeared. The teacher told the children they had to memorise the Russian national anthem.
“I understood that my Ukrainian school had turned into a Russian one”, Svitlana said. “My mom said that we couldn’t leave the occupation, so I had to finish Russian school, get my certificate, and go to Kyiv for university.”
This gave Svitlana a plan for the next few years of life under occupation.
Every Monday all school students were gathered for assembly, so they could sing the Russian anthem. Svitlana and her peers secretly sang the Ukrainian anthem instead.
“If the teachers had heard, we would have been in trouble,” the girl said. “We found it funny,” what was happening. Before, the teachers called themselves Ukrainian, but they soon forgot that and became Russian.
After the occupation, ten teachers, along with the principal, resigned, but the rest, comprising more than 30 teachers, remained working under the Russian occupation authorities.
“I had a favourite German language teacher and she went over to Russia’s side. That was her choice, but from that moment she stopped being my favourite teacher”, Svitlana said.
From adults, the girl heard that before the start of the school year, Russian military and occupation authorities had gone from house to house visiting teachers. They persuaded them to work; and those who refused were intimidated.
“Some teachers told us they had no other choice”, according to Svitlana. Perhaps they were frightened, perhaps some didn’t have the strength to leave the occupation. Russia started paying teachers large salaries to make them more willing to collaborate.
The school curriculum became Russian. Ukrainian language and literature disappeared; and Ukrainian textbooks were confiscated. Instead, Russian books were brought to the school, and children began studying Russian language and history. In lessons, children were required to speak Russian. For Svitlana this was difficult, because she didn’t know it.
“In our village everyone speaks Ukrainian”, she said.
