
How Russians dey force Ukrainian children to love Russia
For one nursery school for Luhansk, ova 70 young children line up and hold one long black and orange Russia military banner for di shape of letter Z, wey be di symbol of Russia invasion of Ukraine.
Across di city, seven small girls dey jump up and down and point to Russian flag to di song, "I am Russian" wey dey play from loudspeakers. Wen di music come stop, dem go shout to gada: "I be Russian."
For one occupied town wey dem dey call Anthracite, nursery school pikin dem don make trench candles and blankets for Russian sojas.
Na all part of one campaign wey no just wan erase Ukraine national identity, but also wan turn young Ukrainians against dia own kontri.
To do dat wit children, you need teachers and many Ukrainian teachers don run, di goment for Moscow don dey offer lump amount of 2m roubles (£18,500) to Russian teachers wey like relocate to di occupied parts of Ukraine.
Di biggest and most powerful Russian organisation wey get hand inside na Yunarmia (Youth Army).
Dem dey linked wit di Russian defence ministry and dem dey accept members wey dey as young as eight years old. Dem dey work throughout Russia and now get branches for di occupied areas of Ukraine.
Fidal Bikbulatov wey dey run di Yunarmia section for di occupied areas for di Zaporizhzhia region for south-east Ukraine.
Bikbulatov bin dey deployed from Russia Bashkortostan wia e bin dey head di "Youth Guard" division of di ruling United Russia party.
Education, military training dey part of how Russia dey indoctrinate Ukraine children
Di EU don sanction Yunarmia and Bikbulatov gan-gan say dem dey "militarize Ukrainian pikin dem". Yunarmia also dey targeted by UK sanctions say dem dey part of Russia campaign to "brainwash" Ukrainian pikin dem.
No be only Yunarmia dey rum am. Oda Russian sponsored organisations wey don enta include "Movement of di First Ones" and "Warrior", wey be network of centres for "di military and athletic training and patriotic education of young pipo" wey di orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin set up.
Dis groups dey arrange competitions like di Zarnitsa games wey get im origin for di Soviet era wia dem dey make Ukrainian pikin dem to demonstrate "general military literacy, knowledge of Russian statehood and military history, firearms firing skills".
As di pikin dem dey grow for dia schooling, dem dey teach dem in Russian, wit Russian curriculum and textbooks wey justify di Russia war against Ukraine.
One of di books show Ukraine as Western invention wey dem create to spite Russia and argue say human civilisation for end if Russia no invade Ukraine for 2022.
Lisa wey go school for occupied Donetsk say students dia bin dey forced to attend events wey celebrate Russia and di USSR.
Lisa say, "wen dem bin dey prepare one kain parade. Me, my whole class and di whole of my year bin dey forced to go evri weekend, go train. We bin need to hold posters. I no fit say no, no be my choice. Dem tell me say I need to do am if I wan graduate".
She add say, "evri time lessons start, our teachers go make us stand up put hand for chest and listen to di Russian anthem wey she also make us cram join."
Lisa now dey stay for di US and don dey post her experiences for TikTok.
Serving Russian sojas also get role for di campaign of indoctrination, say dem dey go schools to teach "bravery lessons". Dem dey glorify dia work for di war and show Ukrainian forces as violent, unruly neo-Nazis.
Pavel Tropkin, wey be official for di ruling United Russia party wey no base for di occupied part of Kherson region tok say, dis teachings "na so di pikin dem go fit understand di objectives" of wetin di Kremlin dey call "di special military operation" for Ukraine.
Outside school, dem dey carry Ukrainian children to go see specially organised exhibitions wey dey glorify Russia and di "special military operation".
One centre wey dey run dis kain trips dey host exhibitions wey dem dey call "Russia - My History" and "Special Military Operation Heroes" for Melitopol for Zaporizhzhia region.
Di trips no dey end dia.
Di Kremlin don also launch one big campaign wey go carry Ukrainian pikin dem on tours to go Russia as part of efforts to ginger pro-Russian thinking.
Russia culture minister, Olga Lyubimova claim say ova 20,000 pikin dem from di occupied Ukrainian territories go Russia for one programme wey dem dey call "4+85". According to Russian goment concert agency Rosconcert, wey dey run di programme, dem wan "join di new generations into di unified Russian society".
But Russia "integration" campaign big pass just indoctrination.
Thousands of Ukrainian children wey dem carry go Russia for di three years of di full scale war, dem no allow dem come back.
Ukrainian goment say ova 19,000 Ukrainian children don dey deported by force to Russia. UK goment say say like 6,000 Ukrainian pikin na im dem don move to network of "re-education camps" for Russia.
International humanitarian law ban activities like dis. For example, di Fourth Geneva Convention tok say occupying power no suppose enlist children "for formations or organizations subordinate to it" and say dem fit apply "no pressure or propaganda wey go aim to secure voluntary enlistment" of locals for occupied areas to join dia armed or auxiliary forces.
For 2023, di ICC put out arrest warrant for President Putin and part of di reason na di unlawful deportation of children. Putin and im goment deny di charges.
For dis war wey dem dey run for Ukraine, Russia no dey only come for territory, dem dey also try stamp diaselves for di pipo wey dey live for dia, no mata how young dem be.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BreakingNews.ie
21 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Zelensky renews offer to meet Putin for face-to-face talks to end war
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday renewed his offer to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, but hopes of any progress were low as delegations from both governments prepared to hold a third round of direct talks. Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded four Ukrainian cities in night-time attacks that officials said killed a child. Advertisement Mr Putin has spurned Mr Zelensky's previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe's biggest conflict since the Second World War. But the Ukrainian leader insists that lower-level delegations like the ones expected for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday do not have the political heft to stop the fighting. A resident looks at damaged cars in a residential area following Russia's drone attack in Odesa (Michael Shtekel/AP) Each side's demands for ending Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour, launched on February 24 2022, remain far apart. 'Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it itself started,' Mr Zelensky said in a Telegram post. Advertisement Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that 'a lot of work needs to be done before having a detailed discussion on a possibility of high-level meetings,' effectively scotching hopes of a summit any time soon. He didn't provide a date for the Istanbul talks. Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Odesa (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP) Ukrainian and Western officials have accused the Kremlin of stalling in talks in order for its bigger army to capture more Ukrainian land. Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, is driving hard to break through at eastern and north-eastern points on the 620-mile front line. Advertisement It is also firing upwards of 700 drones a night at Ukrainian cities. Russian forces struck four Ukrainian cities in three regions in overnight attacks, killing a child and wounding at least 41 other people, officials said. From dusk on Monday evening, Russia struck the Ukrainian regions of Sumy in the northeast, Odesa in the south and eastern Kramatorsk. In Kramatorsk, a glide bomb hit an apartment building, starting a fire, according to the head of the city's military administration, Oleksandr Honcharenko. Advertisement A boy born in 2015 was killed, local officials said, without giving his exact age. Five other people were reported wounded. The Sumy region came under multiple waves of attacks, the regional military administration reported. A drone hit a gas station in the town of Putyvl, wounding four people, including a five-year-old boy, it said. A second drone strike hit the same location less than two hours later, wounding seven other people. After dark, two powerful Russian glide bombs were dropped on Sumy city, wounding 13 people, including a six-year-old boy. Advertisement Russia's defence ministry, meanwhile, said Tuesday that air defenses downed 35 Ukrainian long-range drones over several regions overnight, including three over the Moscow region.


The Sun
21 minutes ago
- The Sun
Fears new Russia-Ukraine talks are ALREADY doomed to fail as bleak Kremlin assessment risks ‘p****d off' Trump's wrath
RUSSIA and Ukraine will hold peace talks in Istanbul tomorrow following Donald Trump's stern warning to warmonger Vladimir Putin. Any hopes for a breakthrough continue to appear bleak as Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned the enemies remained "diametrically opposed". 8 8 8 And fears still linger that Putin may - yet again - make impossible demands and play for time while continuing his 'meatgrinder' assaults and attacks on civilians. Trump has given the tyrant until August 1 to strike a ceasefire deal or face crippling tariff sanctions after authorising a major arms boost for Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a new round of negotiations will take place in Turkey involving envoys from both sides. Zelensky said he had authorised his security council chief Rustem Umerov to stage the third crucial meeting following failed attempts at peace in May and June. He said discussions would centre on 'preparations for a prisoner exchange and another meeting in Turkey with the Russian side". A senior Ukrainian source said talks could also begin working towards a possible historic meeting between Zelensky and Putin. But Kremlin spokesman Peskov downplayed the likelihood of reaching any concrete outcome anytime soon. Peskov said: "A lot of diplomatic work lies ahead." Last week, US president Trump vented his frustration with Putin, declaring he was "disappointed" but "not done" with the Russian tyrant. He imposed a 50-day deadline on the despot as he ordered Putin agree to peace talks so the conflict can finally be resolved. Instead of agreeing, a snarling Putin declined and ramped up his ground and aerial offensives across Ukraine. A child was killed early today when a Russian glide bomb hit an apartment block in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, local officials said. Six areas of the capital Kyiv also came under a combined drone and missile attack. Ukrainian forces said they had pushed back more than 50 attacks in the besieged city of Pokrovsk on the eastern frontline. Russian sabotage squads have already tried to enter the city but had been driven out, Ukraine's military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi said. Late on Monday, a kindergarten was destroyed by one of Putin's missiles in another ruthless strike that laid bare the tyrant's war on Ukraine's children. The missile slammed into the building in Kyiv — leaving a gaping crater where toddlers once played and naptime beds buried under dust. The strike was a part of a 10-hour Russian aerial blitz that saw 426 drones and 24 missiles hurled across Ukraine overnight. 8 8 8 And it marked the second time in three days that NATO fighter jets were scrambled in response to the bombardments. Ukrainian officials said at least 15 people were injured, including a 12-year-old boy, in the barrage. The strikes came amid growing fears that Putin is preparing for an even deadlier chapter in this war. According to German Major General Christian Freuding, Moscow is plotting a mass drone assault involving 2,000 Shahed drones, in a bid to overwhelm Ukraine's already strained air defences. The general warned: 'We have uncovered worrying intelligence… [Russia is] significantly expanding its weapons production capacity.' Chilling footage aired on Russian state TV showed teenagers working in a so-called 'drone death factory,' with Moscow boasting about the 'huge, bright workshops' churning out kamikaze drones by the hundreds. A valiant Ukraine has hit back at the constant Russian aggression. Kyiv's own drone army valiantly struck Moscow for the fifth night in a row, wreaking havoc at major airports and delaying over 400 flights as Russia's defences scrambled to respond. 8 8


The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump's shift on Ukraine has been dramatic – but will it change the war?
Donald Trump presents himself as a peerless president, an unrivaled negotiator, even a 'genius'. So it's a unique moment when he comes close – I emphasize the qualifier –to conceding that another leader has outfoxed him. Trump suggested as much recently when characterizing Vladimir Putin's modus operandi. 'Putin,' he told reporters on 13 July, 'really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening.' Melania Trump may have contributed to this reassessment. As Trump recounted recently, when he told her about a 'wonderful conversation' with the Russian leader, she responded, 'Oh, really? Another city was just hit.' Trump's new take on Putin is a break with the past. His esteem for Putin–whose decisions he has described as 'savvy' and 'genius' – has contrasted starkly with his derisive comments about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he memorably disrespected during a White House meeting and even blamed for starting the war. As recently as February, he declared that Russia's invasion didn't matter to the United States because, unlike Europe, it was separated from Ukraine by 'a big, big beautiful ocean'. He criticized Joe Biden's assistance to Ukraine as a waste of taxpayers' money. Now, Trump has not only changed his view of Putin, stunning many within his 'America First' MagaA movement; he's decided to start arming Ukraine. Well, sort of. Trump has gone beyond effectively conceding that Putin has played him. He has decided to sell military equipment to individual European countries so that they can supply Ukraine and restock their arsenals with purchases from the United States. The president formally announced the change during his 14 July meeting with Mark Rutte, Nato's secretary general. There was more. Trump warned Putin that if he did not accept a ceasefire – which he has steadfastly refused, just as he has ignored Trump's demand to stop bombing Ukraine's cities – within 50 days, Russia would be slammed with tariffs as high as 100%, as would countries that continued to trade with it after the deadline. Two things are clear. First, Trump's perspective on Putin has changed, unexpectedly and dramatically. Second, a war that Trump once said was none of America's business now apparently matters. The president said European countries would buy 'top of the line' American military equipment worth 'billions of dollars' to arm Ukraine. According to one report citing 'a source familiar with the plan', the total will be $10bn. This all sounds like a very big deal. But here's where it becomes important to go beyond the headlines and sound bites and delve into the details. Take the $10bn figure. That's certainly not chump change. Moreover, the main piece of equipment specified so far, the Patriot 'long range, high altitude, all weather' missile defense system, will provide desperately needed relief to Ukrainian city dwellers, who have endured relentless waves of drone attacks – several hundred a night – followed by missiles that slice through overwhelmed defenses. Ukraine has some Patriots but needs more: it's a vast country with a dozen cities whose populations exceed 400,000. However, a Patriot battery (launchers, missiles, a radar system, a control center, antenna masts, and a power generator) costs $1bn, the missiles alone $4m apiece. Ukraine may not need 10 Patriot batteries, but even a smaller number will consume a large proportion of the $10bn package. The other system that has been mentioned is the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm), which combines stealth technology and GPS guidance with a 230-mile range. Ukraine will be able to use its American-made F-16 jets to fire Jassms into Russia from positions beyond the reach of Russian air defense systems. But a single Jassm costs around $1.5m, so the costs will add up quickly. Additional items have been mentioned but only generically; still, their price must also be figured in, bearing in mind that the war could drag on. So, $10bn could be depleted quickly. Moreover, beyond a certain point the US cannot sell equipment from its own stocks without regard to its military readiness requirements. Precisely for that reason, the defense department recently declined to send Ukraine some of the equipment promised under Joe Biden. And Trump has not said that there will be follow-on sales to benefit Ukraine once the $10bn mark is reached. Even if he were to change his mind, individual European countries would be able to buy only so much American weaponry without straining their finances, especially because France and Italy have opted out of the arrangement. Trump has been uninterested in joining the recent move by the UK and the EU to impose a $47.60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil sales, toughening the $60 limit the west enacted in 2022. Finally, Trump isn't going to resume Biden's multi-billion-dollar military assistance packages – 70-plus tranches of equipment, according to the DoD. Trump's 50-day tariff deadline permits Putin to continue his summer offensive, and may even provide an incentive to accelerate it. Russia has already shrugged off Trump's tariff threat. Its exports to the US in 2024 amounted to $526m, a tiny fraction of its global sales. By contrast, Trump's secondary tariffs will hurt Russia, which earned $192bn in 2024 from its global exports of oil and related products, much of that sum from India and China. If the president follows through with his threat, Beijing will surely retaliate, and the consequence will be painful: the United States exports to China totaled $144bn last year. Will Trump proceed anyway, and during his ongoing trade wars, which have already started increasing prices in the US? His track record on tariff threats leaves room for doubt. Ukraine's leaders are understandably elated by Trump's reappraisal of Putin. But it's premature to conclude that it's a turning point that could change the war's trajectory. Washington's new policy may prove far less momentous than Maga critics fear and not quite as transformative as Kyiv and its western supporters hope for. Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies