The fight against Ukrainian identity was declared as a goal of the ‘special military operation’ as early as Putin's ‘historical’ article. Consequently, in the occupied territories, an active policy of total de-Ukrainisation is being pursued, which can be characterised as cultural (humanitarian) genocide.
In Ukrainian schools that continue to operate in the occupied territories, the Russian educational curriculum in the Russian language is being imposed, anti-Ukrainian propaganda elements are being introduced into the curriculum, and teachers are subjected to coercive measures, including imprisonment and torture. In 2022 alone, 1300 schools with the Russian curriculum were opened in occupied Ukraine, and parents are being forced to transfer their children to Russian schools through various forms of pressure and intimidation.
Children deported to Russia are also subjected to intense indoctrination. To date, the names of 19,546 deported and/or forcibly displaced children have been identified, though the actual number may be higher. More than 2000 children have been taken to Belarus. International law considers the ‘forcible transfer of children from one human group to another’ to be one of the indicators of genocide.
The level of Ukrainian entrenchment in the territories occupied in 2022 suggests that Russification will face significant resistance there. At the same time, Ukrainian authorities view educational workers who remain under occupation as collaborators. However, under conditions of prolonged occupation, the approach to this issue must be more nuanced and differentiated, focused on long-term goals of preserving Ukrainian identity.
The war in Ukraine is not just an armed conflict between neighbouring states but a ‘war of identities’, more precisely, a ‘crusade’ by Putin and the Russian occupation administrations against Ukrainian identity. Most Ukrainians are convinced that this is the Kremlin's primary goal (→ Re:Russia: Space for Compromise and the Nature of Intransigence). Putin's article ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, published in the summer of 2021 and providing the ideological foundation for the full-scale invasion, accused Ukrainian authorities of forced Ukrainisation of the Russian population (which did occur but took the form of mild preferences for the Ukrainian language and culture while removing support for the Russian cultural-linguistic sphere).
Accordingly, this war does not end with a ceasefire: in the occupied territories, Russian authorities are conducting a policy of total de-Ukrainisation, which can be characterised as cultural (humanitarian) genocide. The primary target of this policy is children.
According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report Education under Occupation, approximately one million school children live in the Ukrainian territories captured by Russia (over 62,000 of whom continue to receive secondary education remotely in Ukrainian schools). In 2022 alone, 1300 schools with Russian programs were opened in occupied Ukraine. In Ukrainian schools in these territories, the Russian educational curriculum is being imposed in Russian, anti-Ukrainian propaganda elements are added to the curriculum, military training is conducted, students are forced to sing the Russian anthem and write letters to ‘heroes of the special military operation’, while teachers are subjected to coercion, including imprisonment and torture. Parents are being forced to transfer their children to Russian schools under the threat of losing parental rights and through other forms of intimidation. These measures violate international humanitarian law, the report states. HRW documented educational Russification practices during field research in the Kharkiv region after its de-occupation, as well as through interviews with teachers who had been displaced or fled from areas still under occupation.
All participants in the educational system – school principals, teachers, students, and their parents – are subjected to harsh treatment. In the Kharkiv region, Russian occupation authorities used coercion, imprisonment, mistreatment, beatings, and even electric shock torture to force Ukrainian teachers to return to work or hand over students' personal files and other school documents. This information is also used to identify students who have reached military age, as they are of interest to Russia as potential conscripts.
School administrations in Russian-occupied territories also use blackmail to force parents to obtain Russian citizenship, according to the HRW report. Some schools sent out notices stating that enrollment required at least one parent to provide a copy of a Russian passport. Similar measures were documented in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, occupied by Russian forces in 2014, where the new authorities demanded that families of students obtain Russian passports or passports from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics as a condition for accessing education.
In the 2023/2024 academic year, schools in Russian-occupied territories, as well as those in Russia itself, used a new history textbook for 11th grade, covering the period after World War II. The textbook claims that Ukrainian statehood and language do not exist, portrays the Euromaidan as a conspiracy orchestrated by the West, and justifies Russia's aggression against Ukraine as a necessary defence of ‘Russian civilisation’ from the aggression of Kyiv and NATO, which is compared to the scale of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In the next school year, even more propaganda and disinformation will be present in schools in these territories, as the Ministry of Education introduces a mandatory subject for 15-18-year-olds, ‘Fundamentals of Homeland Security and Defense’, based on another new textbook. This textbook falsely claims that after 2014, books in Russian were burned in Ukraine, and the Russian language was allegedly banned.
The totalitarian and repressive practices and the fascistisation of the historical-patriotic doctrine promoted by Moscow are not just an export of the Russian education system but also a testing ground for methods of forced indoctrination, which the authorities plan to use within Russia itself, where youth sentiments are also a major concern for the Kremlin.
As noted in a recent Amnesty International report, teachers who remain in the occupied territories are forced to adapt to the education system imposed by Russia. Those who refuse face various suppression tactics: abductions, threats, psychological and physical violence. Even teachers who have resigned are subjected to psychological terror. Local administration representatives ‘visit’ them, sometimes several times a week, threatening to cut off social support and medical care and to include them on so-called blacklists of individuals prohibited from leaving the occupied territories. According to human rights defenders, the principal of a school in the village of Borovske in the Kharkiv region, who did not hand over school documents to the occupation authorities, was detained for a week and tortured.
The infiltration of the Russian education system into Ukrainian regions will have long-term consequences, including the erosion of Ukrainian identity. However, unlike Crimea, where the situation at the time of annexation was fundamentally different, the newly occupied territories in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions have a much stronger Ukrainian identity, and resistance to Russification will be much longer-lasting in various forms.
This raises significant questions about the Ukrainian government's policy toward residents of occupied territories, especially those involved in education. Amendments to Ukraine's Criminal Code (Article 111.2), adopted in March 2022, significantly increased criminal liability for aiding Russian and occupation authorities. In particular, ‘propaganda in educational institutions of any form of ownership and the implementation of educational standards of the aggressor state’ is now considered collaborationism. According to HRW, as of 15 March 2024, Ukrainian courts had issued 1168 verdicts in criminal cases on charges of ‘collaborative activity’ under this article, including convictions of 35 school principals or their deputies, university administration staff, and ‘academic departments’ employees in occupied territories for ‘implementing Russian Federation educational standards’ or ‘propaganda in educational institutions’. In roughly half of these cases, the defendants were convicted in absentia. All were banned from holding certain positions, and most were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to ten years.
According to HRW, teachers in occupied territories should not be subject to Ukrainian sanctions solely for teaching children using the Russian curriculum, especially when some subjects, like physics or mathematics, lack ideological content. Charges of collaboration should only be considered in cases where there is evidence of more serious acts, such as intentional cooperation that threatens Ukraine's security, human rights advocates note.
However, the issue may be even broader. Anti-collaboration laws were introduced early in the conflict and seemed justified and logical at the time. However, now that some Ukrainian territories are under long-term occupation, it might be time to partially revise the policy so that those seeking to preserve Ukrainian identity in these occupied areas do not become ‘criminals’ from both sides' perspectives
In addition to the de-Ukrainisation of schoolchildren in occupied territories, some Ukrainian children continue to be taken out of Ukraine. Such actions fall under one of the five criteria of genocide, as defined in Article 2 of the UN Convention (‘Forcible transfer of children from one human group to another’).
The Ukrainian portal ‘Children of War’ has confirmed the names of 19,546 deported and/or forcibly displaced children, though the actual number is likely higher due to the difficulties faced by human rights groups working in occupied areas and active war zones. These children are being indoctrinated within Russia, and the Russian Orthodox Church plays an active role in this process. The publication DOXA discovered several Orthodox institutions housing Ukrainian children, where, alongside religious instruction, they are subjected to militarised patriotism. Thus, not only secular authorities in Russia, Belarus, and the occupation administrations are involved in this crime against children, but also religious leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Additionally, a recent joint investigation by Freedom House, together with Ukrainian and Belarusian human rights activists, found that Belarus and officials from the Union State actively participate in Russia's policy of de-Ukrainisation in occupied territories. Between 2021 and June 2024, a total of 2219 Ukrainian children were forcibly relocated to Belarus. At least 27 of them were later transferred to Russia; the number of those returned to Ukraine remains unknown.
The foundations of this policy were laid by a decree issued by Lukashenko in 2021 on the ‘organisation of recreation and rehabilitation for children from Donbas’. However, the most active relocations occurred in 2022-2023, and not during holiday periods as one might expect, but throughout the school year. Human rights advocates believe this indicates that the children were not truly taken for ‘recreation and rehabilitation’. The children were enrolled in local schools, where they were taught an ideologically vetted program in Russian. They were also taken to visit Belarusian security forces, military units, and militarised youth organisations. Thus, this is another aspect of the struggle against Ukrainian identity. In 2022, 29 million rubles were allocated from the Union State budget for these purposes, with an additional 20 million rubles in 2023.
In addition to the governments of Russia and Belarus, human rights groups accuse the State Secretary of the Union State, Dmitry Mezentsev, and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who also chairs the Union State's Council of Ministers, of involvement in criminal acts against Ukrainian children. Various local NGOs are also implicated, the most notable being the foundation of Paralympic athlete Alexey Talay.