LIFE IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE
The bravery, determination, and resilience of Ukrainian Defenders has surprised and astonished the world since the start of the invasion. putin may have expected to take Kyiv in a few days, but three years later and Ukraine still holds strong. Why is it that Defenders continue to resist russian occupation at such great personal costs? It is because Ukrainians are exposed to russian barbarism on a daily basis, and they understand what they have to lose under russian occupation better than anyone.
To get a glimpse of what occupation under the kremlin is like, we need look no further than the experiences of the estimated one million school-age Ukrainian children living in russian-occupied territory. This figure includes the 458,000 children who have been subject to russian rule in Crimea since the 2014 invasion, as well as the over 19,000 that have been kidnapped and deported to russia since the start of the 2022 invasion. The vast majority of these children are subject to an authoritarian curriculum of indoctrination at the hands of their russian occupiers.
The russian-imposed curriculum aims to eradicate Ukrainian national identity and replace it with a new, russian imperial identity. In blatant violation of international human rights standards, instruction in Ukrainian is severely limited. Classes are instead conducted in russian, and students who are caught speaking in their native language are severely punished. As punishment for speaking Ukrainian, one student in occupied Melitopol was abducted by russian authorities, had a bag thrown over his head, was driven 15 miles to a remote area, and was forced to walk home alone.
One of the ultimate goals of the russian curriculum is the militarization of Ukrainian youth. A new course, titled “Fundamentals of Security and Defence of the Motherland,” was created for this purpose, and is compulsory for all students aged 15 to 18 in occupied areas of Ukraine. The required reading for the first year of this course, “The Russian Army in Defence of the Fatherland,” distorts Ukrainian history, painting Ukraine as the aggressor and reframing the war as a war of liberation. The textbook claims that "it was Ukraine and NATO who planned to start the war" and suggests that “a huge number of Ukrainian troops and armoured vehicles were concentrated at the borders” prior to russia’s invasion. It also claims that “Russia fights with integrity” and that “Ukraine frequently targets civilian infrastructure,” despite the fact that it is russia that regularly targets hospitals, playgrounds, and energy infrastructure with their drones and missiles.
Included in the textbook is propaganda highlighting military benefits such as free medical care, insurance, salaries, and three meals a day, Links are provided for an application form for students over the age of 18. For students who have been force-fed such propaganda for over 10 years and have few economic prospects, such advertisements may prove enticing. This is all to say that russia is coercing children through abuse and brainwashing into picking up arms against their homeland.
While some russian educators are willing to be imported for the purpose of indoctrinating Ukrainian children, Ukrainian educators in occupied areas are threatened and tortured if they do not comply with the educational mandates of the kremlin. Educators are required to report the names of students of drafting age to the russian armed forces. Those who resist the russian occupier’s prescribed curriculum and demands in any way are subject to coercion, including detention, beatings, and electroshock torture. One school director in the Kherson region reported being detained for forty days and being repeatedly beaten before escaping back to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Parents who do not enroll their children in russian indoctrination schools do so at great risk: they could be fined, detained, and even risk losing custody of their children. Still, more than 62,000 children living in occupied areas study in Ukrainian secondary education institutions in secret via remote methods, demonstrating the degree to which Ukrainians are willing to resist russian subjugation.
The curriculum of indoctrination is just one facet of life in occupied areas of Ukraine. Citizens in occupied Ukraine are also subject to rampant sexual assault, the seizure of their private property, religious persecution, substandard living conditions, violence, and wanton imprisonment. The Defenders of Ukraine are fighting to keep their nation free from such barbarity so their families can enjoy the same peace and prosperity we expect for our families.
ForeignAffairs.com, February 12, 2025
HRW.org, June 2024
AtlanticCouncil.org, October 17, 2024
BBC.com, March 13, 2024
Yale.edu, March 17, 2025
Institute for the Study of War, April 10, 2025
