US reveals 150 new places where Russia conducted "military training" of children from Ukraine

Russia has taken thousands of Ukrainian children to more than 210 facilities for military training, drone assembling, and other forms of forced re-education. This is stated in a report by the Laboratory for Humanitarian Studies at the Yale School of Public Health.

According to the report, since the publication of a similar document in 2024, more than 150 new locations have been identified where Russia has transported forcibly deported Ukrainian children on the Russian dictator's planes. All data is based on information from open sources and satellite imagery.

Most of the identified sites are managed by the Russian government.

"This is the largest number of places where children were taken from Ukraine published to date. The actual number is likely higher, as the Laboratory is still investigating several locations and there may be additional locations that have not yet been identified," the document says .

According to Yale University, as of June 2025, Russia has forcibly removed 35,000 children from Ukraine. Ukraine estimates this number to be around 19,500.

The report says that the Kremlin is using a "potentially unprecedented large-scale system" of re-education, military training and boarding schools that can hold dozens of children for long periods of time.

"The good news is that we now fully understand the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with. The bad news is that solving this problem, bringing these children home, depends on absolute, universal global unity," Lab Director Nathaniel Raymond told Reuters.

According to Yale University, since 2022, Ukrainian children have been taken to locations scattered over 5,600 kilometers away, including cadet schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious sites, high schools and universities, orphanages, and, most often, camps and sanatoriums.

Military training, according to the report, was conducted in at least 39 locations, 34 of which were discovered for the first time. Children aged 8 to 18 were taken there to undergo "militarization programs": combat training, parade drills, assembly of drones and other equipment, and study of military history.

The children also participated in shooting and grenade-throwing competitions, tactical medicine and training, and learned to fly drones. In one case, according to Yale University, children from Donetsk region were "airborne training" at a military base. They were transported there by an airplane belonging to the "Russian Presidential Administration.".

• on June 16, Zelenskyy said that Russians offered to exchange abducted Ukrainian children for prisoners of war.
• On July 24, The Times reported that Russia was sending abducted children from Ukraine to fight at the front.
• On July 30, the GUR reported that during a cyberattack on Crimea, they found documents confirming the abduction of children from Ukraine.
• On August 21, Senator Graham threatened to designate Russia a sponsor of terrorism over the abduction of children in Ukraine.