Following the occupation of Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, Russia imposed new rules across all areas of life in these territories—from forced passportization to the re-education of children in kindergartens and schools. The Ukrainian language, culture, and any expression of national identity became dangerous. By 2022, this pressure and control intensified, and with the start of the full-scale invasion, the erasure of everything Ukrainian in occupied territories became systematic. Children and teenagers began to be militarised, deported, and turned into “Russians” through indoctrination, forcing them to believe their native culture doesn’t exist and encouraging them to fight for the Russian Federation.
The Reckoning Project is a global team of journalists and lawyers dedicated to documenting, reporting, and gathering evidence to investigate war crimes. They have collected testimonies from young people who grew up in temporarily occupied territories—sharing their experiences of life under Russian rule, re-education programs, militarisation, and forced displacement. These stories formed the basis of the documentary "Children of the Occupation: Donetsk, Mariupol, Crimea," which premiered on January 31, 2025, on Current Time TV.
Over the past year, the Reckoning Project team has documented more than 200 testimonies from participants or witnesses of this process. Many were submitted to Ukrainian and international law enforcement bodies and were the basis for over a hundred journalistic pieces in dozens of countries worldwide.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Russia has deported at least 19,500 Ukrainian children, and more than 1.5 million continue to live under occupation, where they face regular ideological pressure.
How does Russia instil “Russian identity” in Ukrainian children, and what are the long-term consequences of this process? What challenges will Ukraine face after the de-occupation of its territories? How can the documented testimonies help restore justice in the future?
Speakers:
Viktoriia Novikova, Senior Researcher, The Reckoning Project
Yurii Shylov, Director of the film
Peter Pomerantsev, Executive Editor, The Reckoning Project (online)
Karim Asfari, Legal Analyst, The Reckoning Project (online)
Maksym Demydenko, co-founder of War Archive
Moderator:
Maximas Milta, Head of The Reckoning Project’s Office in Ukraine
Organisers:
The Reckoning Project & NGO Docudays
