Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) has named 10 people and two institutions it says are teaching Ukrainian children under occupation to handle weapons—and preparing them to serve Russia.
HUR says those named use youth groups, occupation education authorities, and schools to erase children’s Ukrainian identity and prepare them for Russian military service. Publishing their names supports Ukraine’s efforts to document the system and hold its organizers accountable, but HUR announced no charges or sanctions with the update.
How Russia militarizes Ukrainian youth in occupied territory
At a May 2026 “Zarnitsa 2.0” competition, the Kremlin-backed Movement of the First taught children to handle weapons and explosives and operate drones, HUR said.
At the competition’s stage in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, regional organizer Viktoria Kostromina stated those skills would provide children with a “reliable foundation in life.”
The training sits inside a much larger school system. From 1 September, occupation schools will add a separate basic military-training track alongside a new Russian ideology class and behavior grades. More than 582,000 children across nearly 2,000 schools study under the imposed Russian curriculum, according to the Almenda Center of Civil Education.
Russia is also embedding combat preparation more deeply. “Cossack classes” will make ideological and combat-related drills compulsory for fifth-graders in four occupied Donbas cities. In Crimea, occupation authorities say they have built a pipeline that selects schoolchildren for drone training and ultimately for the Russian military reserve.
The policy has a long horizon. Putin’s 2025 strategy set a 95% “Russian civic identity” target for occupied populations by 2036.
Who HUR says is behind the indoctrination
HUR linked the individuals to the Movement of the First, Yunarmia, occupation education bodies, and a school in Simferopol.
Whom the HUR identified
- Artur Orlov: chairman of the Kremlin-backed Movement of the First.
- Oleksii Lavrentiev, Marina Tsvetinskaya, Ruyal Aliyev, Ekaterina Kozyr, Viktoria Kostromina and Kateryna Popova: regional Movement of the First organizers in occupied Ukraine.
- Svitlana Bespalova: occupation deputy education minister in Crimea.
- Nikita Polyakov: Yunarmia organizer in occupied Kherson Oblast.
- Dmytro Pryvidion: director of School No. 5 in occupied Simferopol.
HUR also identified two institutions: Pryvidion’s School No. 5 and the Selet–Ak Bars youth center in Foros. It says the school holds militaristic activities and produces devices for loading rifle magazines, while the center stages pro-war events for children.
All 12 entries now appear in the “Child Kidnappers” section of HUR’s War&Sanctions database.
Ukraine has previously pursued individual organizers through criminal cases. In 2024, the SBU accused a Crimea occupation official of using schools and military camps to indoctrinate pupils and encourage enlistment in Russia’s forces.
Ukraine’s ombudsman later asked the ICC and Ukrainian law enforcement to recognize systematic child militarization as a crime against humanity.
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