Latest news with #Russification
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Putin Ups His Efforts To Wipe Out Ukrainian Culture In Schools, UK Says
Russia wants to stop Ukrainian children in occupied Ukraine from learning their native language, according to the UK. In Vladimir Putin's latest bid to impose Russian culture on his European neighbours, the president plans to remove Ukrainian from school curriculums in the parts of the beleaguered country he is still illegally occupying. According to the most recent estimates, Russia holds 19% of Ukraine's sovereign land. That's roughly the same size of the US state of Ohio. This education policy is likely to primarily impact Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, but may also affect Crimea, annexed by Russia a decade ago, as well as Luhansk and Donetsk. The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) explained in its latest update on social media that this is part of a wider long-standing 'Russification policy' which aims to 'extirpate Ukrainian culture, identity and statehood'. Pointing to a Russian Education Ministry Order covered in open-source reporting, the MoD said the changes will come in from September 2025 and are supposedly the result of the 'changed geopolitical situation'. The officials said: 'This follows reported long-term Russian efforts to reduce and eliminate the Ukrainian language in schools in other illegally occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.' Putin has also demanded protections for the Russian language 'within unoccupied territories of Ukraine', according to the MoD. The intelligence summary concluded: 'The Russian Education Ministry's plans as reported amount to a further addition to the senior leadership's long-standing Russification policy in illegally occupied Ukrainian territory.' Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 18 July out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: 🇺🇦 — Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 18, 2025 The update suggests that Putin has no intention of winding down his aggression against Ukraine, despite Donald Trump's best efforts to end the three-year war. The US president warned earlier this week that America would impose 100% tariffs on Russian exports to the States unless Moscow stopped its assault on Ukraine within the next 50 days. The US president has also agreed to send US Patriot missiles to Ukraine, although they will be paid for by the European Union. 'I haven't agreed on the number yet but they're going to have some because they do need protection,' Trump said. But Putin continues to press on with the war, dismissing the US threats – just last week, the MoD said Russia was even 'increasing the pace of gains' in Ukraine. Moscow has been cracking down on Ukrainian culture for some time, too. In March, Putin signed a decree forcing Ukrainian nationals in any land Russia currently controls to 'settle their legal status' by September 10, 2025. If they miss that deadline, they will be forced to leave. Related... Russia 'Increasing Pace Of Gains' In Ukraine Despite Trump's Peace Plea, Says UK Former Russian PM Says Putin Could Be Forced To End The Ukraine War This Year Trump Just Called Out Putin's 'Bulls***' – But Don't Expect Anything To Change In Ukraine
New York Post
28-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
At least 35K Ukrainian children abducted since start of war, forced into Putin's ‘Russification' programs
As least 35,000 Ukrainian children are believed to be missing – abducted by Russian troops and forced into indoctrination programs since the start of the Kremlin's brutal three-year invasion. The children all had the misfortune to live behind what are now Russian lines — the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the southeast of Ukraine. 7 These children from an orphanage in the Donetsk region of Ukraine were brought to a camp in Russia. AP Some were orphans — abducted from care homes or from the battlefield after the death of their parents, Ukrainian authorities said. Other parents were tricked into sending their children on school trips to Crimea, billed as a retreat to escape the fighting, only to never hear from them again, according to reports. 7 Many of the children from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol are believed to have been abducted. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images It's believed the kids captured have been forced into 'Russification' programs — kept in so-called 're-education camps,' according to experts at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. The US research team has been working to keep track of Ukrainian children that have disappeared since the start of Russia's 2022 war on Kyiv and has identified dozens of these camps — at least 13 in Belarus and 43 in Russian-annexed Crimea and across mainland Russia. 7 Two Ukrainian children at a camp in Russia. AP There, the kids are being indoctrinated into Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's vision, raised to speak Russian — not Ukrainian — and forced to sing the Russian national anthem daily. Some of the children forcibly removed from their homes were as young as four months, according to researchers. Other kids have reportedly been sent to Kremlin-backed military boot camps, training to fight for Moscow in the brutal war against their own country. 7 Shocking footage on Russian TV showed Ukrainian children assembling weapons. Newsflare Shocking images from Russian state television have shown young Ukrainian boys and girls assembling and firing assault rifles, all while the Russian flag and a portrait of the Russian tyrant loomed in the background. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has claimed to have abducted a staggering 700,000 Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. 7 The Kremlin paraded children taken from Mariupol to mark the first anniversary of the start of Putin's war. Russians have been open about what they've called 'rehoming' Ukrainian children, who have been portrayed as having been abandoned by their families. Moscow's state television has aired news segments where kids arriving from Ukraine are gifted teddy bears by their adopted Russian families. Even the Kremlin's Children's Rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, has publicly bragged about adopting a boy from the city of Mariupol, which was seized by Russian forces in 2022 following a bloody, months-long siege. 7 Ukrainians have protested for the release of the children taken to Russia. Any attempts to recover the children has been met with stiff resistance from the Kremlin, which has even refused to give Ukrainian authorities a list of their names, according to the Yale team. Only a few hundreds of those forcibly removed were able to escape or return home, with the help of Ukrainian organizations like Bring Kids Back. 7 People in Belgium lighting candles for the children abducted from Ukraine. Getty Images
Telegraph
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Trump funding cut ‘risks Ukraine's abducted children disappearing forever'
Examining Russian adoption databases, a team of analysts identified 314 stolen Ukrainian children, listed as Russian citizens with different names. Without that intelligence, those children might have fallen into the deep cracks of Moscow's scheme to 'Russify' Ukraine's children, lost forever in a state-sponsored effort to conceal their identities. The work of the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale University represents the most extensive public effort at documenting Russia's war crimes, especially its large-scale abduction of Ukrainian children. However, as of July 1, its whole operation will be shut down after the Trump administration withdrew its funding. Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of the research lab, said the stakes could not be higher. He said: 'We are academic researchers going head-to-head with Russia's FSB and battling with the most amount of missing children since the Second World War. 'Yet, we don't know if we will survive the month.' The Ukraine Conflict Observatory, an effort led by the HRL, had been tracking 35,000 children who were forcibly deported from Ukraine, funnelled into re-education camps or adopted by Russian families. Often their identities have been erased. Ukraine, in comparison, has officially identified 19,546 children, calling the abductions a war crime that meets the UN treaty definition of genocide. The true number, estimates suggest, could range from 260,000 to 700,000. Only 1,366 children have been returned from deportation so far. Bill Van Esveld, the associate director of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch, said: 'It's a scandal that the lab is scrambling to be able to continue its work when there is no other source of information about so many Ukrainian kids that could help bring them home.' He said that since day one of the war, the Yale lab has played an 'irreplaceable role'. Launched in 2022, with $6 million in federal funding, the lab has excelled in using open-source intelligence – including satellite imagery, phone data and social media, to track the movements of illegally deported children and preserve critical evidence of war crimes. Its work helped catalyse six International Criminal Court indictments against Russia, including two related to the abduction of children that led to arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his children's rights commissioner Cut off from own database In February, the department of government efficiency (Doge) – then headed by Elon Musk – terminated its funding without explanation and cut off the task force from its own database. After the move drew outrage, HRL was granted a temporary extension to transfer all its vital repository to Europol and the Ukrainian government, which is now due to expire. US officials warn that the data will quickly become out-of-date, spelling a disaster for efforts to find the children and document the efforts against them. The weight of that responsibility hangs heavy on Mr Raymond, who is in disbelief that Kyiv's allies, including the UK, have not stepped up to ensure the lab's survival. 'It is just us and then Ukrainian bodies – there are no other major efforts tracking the children,' he said. Earlier this month, 30 members of Congress sent a letter to Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, urging the administration to maintain the funding for the lab. The letter stated: 'No explanation has been given to us as to why funding for the Conflict Observatory has been terminated.' It argued that its work 'cannot be replaced by Europol or other organisations'. Congressional aides told CNN that the state department had planned to allocate $8 million to HRL for 2025. Lawmakers are now questioning where that money went. Doug Klain, an analyst at Razom for Ukraine, a US-based humanitarian aid and advocacy organisation, said: 'This was absolutely not an arbitrary decision.' He argued that the lab was specifically targeted as part of the Trump administration's unwinding of its efforts to investigate Russian war crimes. In March, the US government withdrew from a multinational group meant to investigate leaders responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including Putin. It also reduced the work of the justice department's War Crimes Accountability Team and dismantled a program to seize assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, The Washington Post reported. Mr Klain added: 'The Trump administration seemingly decided that refusing to hold Russia accountable would make it more likely Putin would agree to a ceasefire. In reality, we've just seen Putin attack Ukrainian civilians with even greater impunity.' With Washington allegedly turning away from the issue, the HRL's work takes on new importance. In 2023, the HRL identified a network of 43 re-education camps and facilities across 21 Russian regions where abducted Ukrainian children are being held. It also exposed Belarus' role in the deportation campaign, confirming 13 locations there. The lab estimates that there are at least 116 locations, including family centres, so-called summer camps, hospitals, converted military facilities and even buildings owned by the president's office. Mr Raymond said: 'It is a massive gulag system stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific that is run systematically by Russia's government and could hold up to hundreds of thousands of children.' The majority of camps engage in re-education, often pressuring children to give up their Ukrainian identity, while others provide military training and prevent their return home – violating international human rights law. 'Constant game of cat and mouse' The work to identify the children is delicate and painstaking. 'It is a constant game of cat and mouse,' Mr Raymond said. If Russia's security services sense that HRL or other organisations may be on their tail, the databases are deleted, the children might be moved again and have their names changed. Time is also running out. 'The longer these children remain under Russian control, the more likely it is that they will be lost – not only physically, but in terms of who they are and where they belong,' said Mykola Kuleba, the co-founder of Save Ukraine, a non-profit that organises rescue missions to return deported children. He told The Telegraph: 'This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a crime with generational consequences.' He emphasised how 'invaluable' the work of the lab has been to put the plight of Ukraine's children 'at the forefront of many states' political agendas'. The worst-case scenario is that these children could then be sent to the front line. There is widespread evidence that part of the children's indoctrination involves forced militarisation for Russia 'to prepare future soldiers to fight against their own country', according to Vladyslav Havrylov, a fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues at Georgetown University. There are also 1.6 million Ukrainian children living under Russian occupation who, Mr Havrylov said, 'are all at danger of being deported'. An independent report earlier this month revealed that the children are already being forced into militarised camps and programmes to be indoctrinated. Identifying and tracing Ukraine's missing children is also central to its broader struggle for justice at future peace negotiations. Without their names Ukraine cannot demand their return from Russia and hold it accountable for their abduction. At the direct talks in Istanbul at the start of June, Ukraine handed Russia a list of 339 children to return home first as a mark of 'good faith' for the peace negotiations. That list is believed to have been heavily influenced by the HRL's work. Mr Raymond said: 'These are the hardest to find, hardest to return children who have been listed on adoption websites.' Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian side denied abducting at least 20,000 children and insisted that the number was merely 'hundreds'. Russia on Thursday announced that it would return five of those on the list. 'The world just did not care' The HRL's state funding dried up mid-June. Now, it is limping along, relying on individual donations to keep it going until July 1. There is a small sliver of hope that enough donations will allow it to survive a month longer. Mr Raymond questioned why there has been no mass mobilisation around the issue of Ukraine's stolen children and how, in turn, the lab has found itself shuttered. He said: 'It shows the world just did not care enough. 'This is a Dunkirk moment. If we don't survive, it means that no one is helping Ukraine to look for the kids and those children are left alone to fend for themselves. 'We wait for rescue, so we can get back in the fight.'
Sydney Morning Herald
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Carnage at Gaza aid distribution sites reminds who pays cost of war
US President Donald Trump's black hole ability to suck attention has diverted eyes from the real consequences of war in the Middle East and its devastating impact on ordinary lives. Trump's prevarication on Iran amid claims and counterclaims on Tehran's nuclear preparedness has much of the world distracted. Now, horrific footage showing the aftermath of Palestinians killed or wounded by Israeli gunfire, tanks and airstrikes, some while desperately waiting at aid distribution points, has put Gaza's ongoing carnage into sharp focus and reminded us what could await further escalation in the Middle East. Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering Gaza throughout March and April and threatened the 2.3 million residents with a 'critical risk of famine '. Food has become extremely scarce, and prices for basics have soared. The blockade was partially lifted last month, but United Nations attempts to deliver aid have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions, air strikes and growing anarchy. With outside media banned and no independent eyewitnesses, the Gaza war has been conducted behind closed doors, but the aid distribution footage has revealed the suffering and death inflicted on individuals and families and the despicable thing that is being visited upon the innocent. Israel claims it does not target civilians. However, dozens of civilians have died in the recent violence and the UN human rights office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has called on the Israeli military to stop using lethal force near aid convoys and food distribution sites. The overall death toll, according to the Hamas-run Health ministry, has climbed to 55,637, with 129,880 wounded since the conflict erupted following the despicable Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023. At the same time, Russia has taken advantage of the distraction provided by the Middle East drama to launch a brutal missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed 28 and injured at least 140 people in the Ukraine capital. They also hit other towns and districts and transferred 50 children from an occupied zone to a camp deep inside Russia that reportedly specialises in ideological brainwashing and systemic Russification. Ukraine's national database, Children of War claims since February 2022, 19, 546 children have been abducted from Russian-occupied territories and sent to other Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine or to Russia. Preoccupied with Iran, a distracted world has hardly batted an eye as the political leaders of Russia and Israel allowed their troops to kill civilians in Gaza and Ukraine. More is being destroyed than infrastructure in both theatres of war. The rules of war have been thrown to the winds. The conflicts will have to fade before it is possible to judge if these are war crimes. But the footage of crying men, women and children in the rubble of their lives is tragic testimony that opens up the most closed of minds to the cost of such obvious transgressions.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Author Yuri Andrukhovych on Ukrainian dissident art in Soviet times
In Soviet times, being a pro-Ukrainian artist was dangerous. The Soviet secret police were particularly brutal in Ukraine, given that it was a country with a long history of resistance to Russian rule. Still, new generations of artists remained committed to their culture in the face of widespread Russification. Among them was Yuri Andrukhovych, who, in 1985, co-founded the Bu-Ba-Bu literary performance group. Today, Andrukhovych is one of Ukraine's most famous and celebrated authors. But his career started as part of a bold underground movement that quickly grew into a cultural phenomenon, signaling the country's push toward independence. Bu-Ba-Bu's rejection of censorship and societal taboos resonated deeply with the Ukrainian population, which was eager to embrace the ideals of creative expression. In an interview with the Kyiv Independent, Andrukhovych opened up about the origins of Bu-Ba-Bu, the struggle of Ukrainian cultural movements in the face of Soviet censorship, and the profound sense of pride he feels as he witnesses Ukrainian culture thrive despite the adversity brought on by Russia's war today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Kyiv Independent: April marks a special month for the history of Ukrainian culture — it's the 40-year anniversary of the founding of Bu-Ba-Bu. For our foreign audience, could you just tell us a little bit about what it was and your part in founding it? Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, it will be on April 17 — we have a precise date. I couldn't participate in that very first meeting which took place in Lviv, though. It was a meeting between my two friends, the poets Viktor Neborak and Oleksandr Irvanets. I was supposed to join them, but I fell ill the day before. The year was 1985, and we didn't know it yet, but it would turn out to be a very significant year in history. Bu-Ba-Bu is, of course, an abbreviation of three different notions. The first 'Bu' comes from 'burlesque,' and the second from 'buffoonery.' In between them is 'Ba,' which comes from the word 'balagan.' It is actually an old Hebrew world that means something akin to chaos or disorder. Later, the term took on a special meaning, particularly in the cultural spaces of Eastern and Central Eastern Europe. "Balagan" came to describe a kind of small, wandering theater — a nomadic circus. It was a form of cheap, simple entertainment for ordinary people. Marketplaces in cities and towns across Central Europe often featured them. We incorporated these three notions into our aesthetic program, but we never set out with a manifesto or a proclamation to change Ukrainian poetry or literature. We simply began by reading, writing, and sharing our poems — mostly with each other. Ukraine's longstanding aspirations for independence and freedom were seen (by the Soviet authorities) as the most dangerous tendencies in the former Soviet Union. So, there were three of us, young and full of energy. I was the oldest in our trio at 25. My friends (Neborak and Irvanets) were both 24. With everything ahead of us, we set out to create our own kind of circus in poetry. We wrote poems that could be both a show and a performance. Our goal was to blend live performance with poetry that was deep, clever, and witty. The Kyiv Independent: Could you talk about the public perception of your performances? Was there a hunger among the Ukrainian public for such poetry at the time? Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, everything came gradually, slowly. In 1985, there was still a difficult situation regarding censorship, with various obstacles imposed by the system to hinder artistic and literary initiatives. For the first two years (of Bu-Ba-Bu), our activities remained mostly private — built on friendships, personal connections, and informal gatherings. Our first decision was to meet regularly. These meetings weren't limited to Lviv, where Viktor Neborak lived then and still does today. We also gathered in Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk, the latter of which is my city. In many ways, our activities revolved around traveling and visiting one another. Along the way, we organized small gatherings — let's call them informal readings — held in intimate circles, often in artists' workshops or friends' apartments. These gatherings usually included the three of us, along with five to seven others. Our first real public performance took place in December 1987. By then, we had already existed for two and a half years before making our debut presentation in Kyiv. The venue was Molody Theater. A significant change in its administration had just taken place. Sometime earlier, the theater had invited the renowned Ukrainian director and dissident Les Taniuk. After escaping the KGB in Soviet Ukraine, he spent several years in Moscow. Then, in 1987, he was invited back to Kyiv to take over as director and administrator of Molody Theater. Les Taniuk was just brilliant. He completely reorganized the theater. He introduced an entirely new program. At the same time, he also launched several parallel initiatives. One of these was a series of literary readings. Our Bu-Ba-Bu event was actually the second in this series. The very first event was dedicated to the authors of the Executed Renaissance (a generation of artists that perished in the Stalinist purges in the 1930's). It was a bold and risky topic for that time. But it resonated deeply — people in Kyiv quickly realized there was a place where previously banned texts could be performed. A stage was open to anyone talented enough to bring something fresh and of high literary quality. I look back on that evening with great happiness. It's astonishing to remember a time without the internet or social networks. We had no advertising, nothing on TV or radio. At best, maybe a tiny mention, three or four sentences buried on the last page of a newspaper. Yet, word spread. Somehow, people found out. The space filled up completely. More and more people kept arriving, but there were no seats left. It was an incredibly promising start. The Kyiv Independent: You mentioned censorship and how certain material was considered risky. Many foreigners tend to associate this with the earlier years of — Stalin, the Great Purges. But can you talk about how, even in the later years of the Soviet Union, being a Ukrainian artist was still risky? What was it like to embrace the Ukrainian language and culture at a time when Russification was the norm? Yuri Andrukhovych: When it comes to censorship in Ukraine, our Soviet Republic was a unique case. In the late Soviet period — the 1970s and 1980s, well after the Stalinist era — Ukraine still endured what felt like a softer version of Stalinism. In many ways, the situation here was much worse than in other parts of the Soviet Union. There was more openness in the three Baltic republics, in Georgia, and, of course, in Moscow. Many Ukrainian artists and poets in the 1970s fled to Moscow, where it was less dangerous than staying in Ukraine. It was there they could escape the reach of the KGB, losing their trail in the vast sprawl of the city. Ukraine's longstanding aspirations for independence and freedom were seen (by the Soviet authorities) as the most dangerous tendencies in the former Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Republic was under very specific control. The previous generations of Ukrainian poets, known collectively as the Sixtiers and the Seventiers, faced tremendous challenges. Over the course of two nights (during the New Year's celebration), for example, the Ukrainian KGB launched a massive operation. Many people were arrested, and the Ukrainian cultural sphere faced continued severe attacks over the following weeks. This led to numerous trials, and by the mid-80s, when our generation began, most of the people from 1972 — let's call them the "people of 1972" — were still political prisoners. They were either in labor camps or prisons. The most significant figure from that group was, of course, Vasyl Stus, who was killed in a Russian penal colony in September 1985. Looking back, we can say with certainty that the situation in Ukraine at the time was a form of neo-Stalinism — a continuation of the same longstanding oppressive policies. Read also: 10 authors shaping contemporary Ukrainian literature The Kyiv Independent: Since 2014, there has been much talk about . What is the most rewarding aspect for you about this comment moment in Ukrainian culture? Yuri Andrukhovych: For me as a writer, the most significant changes have, of course, been in the publishing world and literary life. Since 2014, we've seen the rise of so many new publishing houses. There are also numerous new literary festivals and public readings. And, most importantly, we've witnessed a new wave of Ukrainian readers. But it's not just literature and publishing. There has been a rebirth of contemporary Ukrainian theater, and, of course, our visual arts have flourished as well. In fact, I'd argue that our visual arts were already unique and impressive even before 2014. In my opinion, they represented a kind of avant-garde in contemporary Ukrainian art. These artists were creating brilliant projects using very modern forms of expression. They worked actively with installations and video art. Before 2014, whenever I was in Europe, I would always find exhibitions or spaces showcasing new Ukrainian art. I felt incredibly proud to come from a country with such remarkable contemporary art. Since then, this diversity and richness have continued to thrive. And, of course, we can't overlook film and cinematography. I particularly see success in Ukrainian documentary films. But we also have feature films that are truly outstanding. The most important thing is that people now want to experience this — attending theaters, paying to watch Ukrainian films, all of which is a very positive sign. The Kyiv Independent: I'd like to conclude by discussing your poetry collection, 'Set Change,' which was recently . This is a significant achievement, not only for you but also for Ukrainian literature in translation. Could you talk about this collection? As I understand, it features poetry written early in your career, before you started to focus more on writing prose. Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, this collection consists of selected poems from my three first collections. The poems were written in the 1980s, and it also includes two cycles, 'India' and 'Letters from Ukraine.' It's a mix of work I wrote from around 1980 to 1990. This period represents the active stage of my poetic career. After 1990, I wrote more poems, but those were composed between 1999 and 2004. Some of the poems from that time, from my collection 'Songs for a Dead Rooster,' had been published earlier in English translation by Lost Horse Press. The idea for this new collection came from my American translators, Ostap Kin and John Hennessy. They suggested putting together the collection and I think they did an excellent job. I was involved every step of the way, reviewing each batch of new translations. I paid close attention to each line, thinking carefully about how they had translated it. We had many interesting and productive discussions through our email exchanges — I'm looking forward to holding the hard copy in my hands. Read also: Wondering where to start with Dostoevsky? Try his Ukrainian contemporaries instead Hey there, it's Kate Tsurkan, thanks for reading my latest interview. Yuri Andrukhovych is one of the greatest living voices in Ukrainian literature and this was my second time interviewing him. I hope more and more people across the world will learn about his work and his contributions not only to Ukraine but to world literature. If you like reading this sort of material, please consider supporting us by becoming a paid member of the Kyiv Independent today. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
