this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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[...]

Three years [ago], the governor of St. Petersburg signed a sister-city agreement with the occupying authorities of Mariupol, the Ukrainian port city that was razed to the ground in a devastating Russian siege just weeks beforehand.

“Since then, St. Petersburg has hosted children from Mariupol for every camp session — both in summer and winter,” said Governor Alexander Beglov.

This summer, Russian authorities are organizing five three-week camp sessions for children from the occupied city. Each session is led by child psychologists, St. Petersburg schoolteachers and camp counselors who recently graduated from teacher training college.

More than 2,000 schoolchildren from Mariupol in total are expected to attend camps in St. Petersburg this year.

Initially, Russian authorities billed these summer programs as health and wellness retreats for children who had lived under Russian shelling.

But from the very first sessions, children were also taught to develop respect and love for the country that seized their home city.

[...]

Today Ukraine has confirmed the deportation of 19,546 children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia, though experts say the real number is likely much higher.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in connection with these deportations.

Ukrainian experts say Russia is deliberately stripping these children of their Ukrainian identity and raising them to become Russians, turning minors into a new generation loyal to the Kremlin.

The educational program at Camp Druzhnykh lists goals that include fostering a national — that is, Russian — identity among the children.

[...]

The camp also organizes a career fair where children can learn about the job market in Russia. In June, it featured a police college that accepts students as early as ninth grade. Students from the college spoke to the children about the ceremonial police oath and showed them how to take fingerprints.

[...]

Now in high school, Masha [a girl form Mariupol, not her real name] quietly dreams of moving to St. Petersburg for university. But when she talks about the future, there is a sadness in her voice [...] “I used to think living in Russia was easy. But then my mom tried to get a job at Pyaterochka [a discount supermarket chain], and the salary was under 20,000 rubles (less than $253) — while the country’s minimum subsistence level is 17,000 ($215). That’s when I realized life in Russia is hard. You don’t live — you survive.”

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Fuck Putler

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Xi Jinping 🤝 Putin

Kidnapping people into “camps” to wipe away their culture and indoctrinate them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

This is genocide btw. And it makes me feel worse than all the shooting and killing. Whoever is complicit in this, whoever "just followed orders" any step along the way of abducting kids from their families and forceful supplanting them, I want to see rot in hell.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Fact Sheet: Russia's Kidnapping and Re-education of Ukraine's Children -- [from March 2025]

  • Yale HRL [Humanitarian Research Lab] has identified more than 8,400 children from Ukraine who have been systematically relocated to at least 57 facilities––including 13 facilities in Belarus and 43 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied territory.

  • Russia targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.

  • There are documented cases in which children were physically abused, denied communication with their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care after being taken to Russia.

  • Russia has refused to give Ukrainian authorities a list of children taken to Russia––as required by international law––and has engaged in various activities to conceal their forced deportation and illegal adoption of children from Ukraine.

  • The** kidnapping and indoctrination, including military training, of children from Ukraine was ordered by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin** and executed by Russia’s federal, regional, and occupation officials. Russia’s security services and criminal investigative agency systematically targeted vulnerable groups of children and transported them to Russia, where regional officials subjected them to re-education and listed children for adoption. Russia’s Investigative Committee has set recruitment quotas and designated a cadet school for children from Ukraine, creating a direct pipeline into federal security service.

  • Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the forced deportation of Ukraine’s children.

  • Hundreds of children––including those with families––were taken from Ukraine and illegally placed for adoption in Russia or placed in Russian families. In at least one case, Russia’s government re-issued the child’s birth certificate, changing the child’s name and place of birth. Such changes in personal information present significant barriers to identifying the child for return.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Russia is definitely not the country that has any right of taking in these children, as the aggressor and the sole reason for their misplacement. But from what I can tell, it's not as bad as it could've been. There are ordinary, non-military non-political people there who wish these kids well, who have their head on top of their body. At the very least are attempting to teach love and not hatred, which is arguably much more constructive in the long term, regardless of what side you're on. Though a love for "your nation" and "your government" can be shoved up a certain place regardless of what country is in the talks.

Good on the anonymous child psychologist who try and treat their early development of PTSD though, when there are things like this happening:

“When the children were on a boat on the Neva River and heard the cannon fired from the Peter and Paul Fortress, they dropped flat on the deck, face down — no one had warned them it was just a ceremonial shot,” the psychologist recalled.

I still wish to believe in the good people that are not corrupted by the government and politicians (yet?).

Who knows though, it might all be smoke and mirrors to avoid further persecution of the atrocities that were committed in the first place.

Also, I'd love to get the source for this (couldn't find it skimming through VK):

A few days later, on Russia Day, counselors asked the children, “What does Russia mean to you?” and filmed their answers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You seem to forget a lot of these children are not helpless orphans who's parents died in the war and now need a new future. Sure there might be some person somewhere genuinely trying to help these children, but they're still being brainwashed into believing their old society was bad and their new society is good. This is a form of ethnical cleansing, similar to how colonizers in North-America tried to 'educate' the children of the natives.

Also you talk about misplacement as if these children accidentally were on the wrong side of the front, but many of them were intentionally seperated from their parents.

I don't think you mean to defend this form of genocide, but by omitting the war crimes that Russia comitted, you kind of are.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I even linked to the war crimes, and you're accusing me of defending genocide? I even prefaced the comment with Russia not having any right (they are in the wrong).

"Misplaced" was a bad choice of words, as I did not mean to imply that they are orphans whose family is gone. But they are forcibly placed in an unfavorable place.

I didn't see anything that would hint at their old society being bad, but there was indeed "here is good" present, which could imply the former, depending on the angle. And the angle being "Russia is a great country", there's easily the corresponding association of its enemies, I concur.


By trying to look at the "not so bad" aspects of things, I'm not defending the bad. Thoughts are not black and white, having to be either for or against. For example:
My grandpa dies, and I say "He lived a long and prosperous life". I'm not implying that dying is not bad, therefore good. There are nuances, just like with this conflict. "At least the kids get to laugh" is not defending/encouraging them being stolen away from their families.

What I'm getting at, is that considering the dark times we live in, we should not ignore the nuances. There are many good things that have come from this conflict, like an unprecedented unity among nations, people standing up against heinous acts, and an incredible support system.
But let me capitalize the following, so it's abundantly clear:

This does not excuse the villains nor their acts!

While consequences should be given to the perpetrators, we should try and not get consumed by the darkness. There are many people caught in the middle suffering - do not let them suffer just because they are part of a system that is failing them. This includes Russia, US, as well as the rest of the world.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

you're accusing me of defending genocide?

Not all forms of genocide, this particular one. I also said i don't think you're doing it intentional. I appreciate you're trying to bring nuance, i think it's important we keep seeing good things in between the bad things. But the danger of only writing on the not so bad parts, we make it easier for the people who are defending the bad things (Russian trolls in this case) to drop their narrative. My post was meant more as a warning than as an accusation. Also because it can be hard to see in what ways something can be interpreted while you yourself know exactly what you mean by it. But i'll say again, despite i think your comment (not you as a person) defended genocide or could be seen as such, i really think it is a good thing your not putting everyone is the same box.

There are many people caught in the middle suffering - do not let them suffer just because they are part of a system that is failing them.

If we loose sight of that, we will stop caring for their fates and that likely will only increase their suffering.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

@[email protected]

These children and their families go through hell. This is pure genocide. There are no "not so bad aspects" of things. It is only black, there is no white at all,