Part 2: If you want to conquer a people, raise their children
(Research March/April 2023)-(Written June/July 2023)
Investigators/Authors: Nicoleta Banila , Vyacheslav Kolomets, Vasile Popa and Deniz M. Dirisu
Edited by: Gijs Freriks
Belova’s Network
Through the analysis and the review of Russian regional websites of the Commissioners for the Rights of Children, we have been able to identify key responsible people with receiving the children as well as some of the regions where they are being sent to.
The data we have gathered so far for confirmed by publicly available sources such as the Centre for Information Resilience (Info-RES), show that deported Ukrainian children and adults are taken to filtration camps in Eastern Ukrainian territories controlled by Russia. After filtration, adults, unaccompanied children or children and parents and other relatives are transported across the border in Russia to so-called Temporary Accommodation Centres/ Points (TACs/ TAPs), which are primarily schools, colleges, sanatoriums, summer camps, and orphanages.
According to RIA Novosti, the number of TACs receiving refugees from the new territories of Russia and Ukraine had reached 807 as of October 2022.
Some of these TACs, which we were able to confirm as receiving displaced children and adults, were identified and geolocated in our Project Mariupol map here: https://maphub.net/OSINTFORUKRAINE/project-mariupol-a-record-of-evil.-crimes-of-war-and-against-humanity-in-ukraine
Western Russia
Ombudsman for Children's Rights in the Moscow Region Ksenia Mishonova posted on her Telegram account in August that 62 children from the DPR are raised by foster families in the Moscow region, of which 32 have received Russian citizenship. In July, she announced that 14 children from the Donbass region received Russian citizenship and new birth certificates in the Moscow region. Between February-July, 19,400 people from DPR and LPR became residents in the region, her office added.
According to data from Russian authorities published in local media, there were six TACs, mostly children summer camps, receiving Donbass refugees, including children in the Moscow region as of March. These are located in Volokolamsk (“28 панфиловцев”), Klin (”Звонкие голоса”), Kolomna (“метеор”), Podolska (“мечта”), Pushkino (“родник”) and Zaraysk (“осетр”).
Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Voronezh region Irina Popova said that 237 orphans and children left without parental care arrived in the region in March. Here and here, we can see Popova assisted Belova with receiving children from DPR and LPR after the Russian President gave the order to evacuate the regions in February. In March, the governor of the region, Alexander Gusev, was urged by Belova to make people from his region adopt or take orphans into custody. He said that over 1,500 children were evacuated from Donbass to the region.
A September 2022 article announcing the arrival of 500 residents in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine mentions that there are 13 TACs in the region, noting “Голубой экран” and “Кировец”. A May article mentions the name of another TAC in the sanatorium named after “F. E. Dzerzhinsky”, which hosted at the time 289, of which 90 were schoolchildren and toddlers. Interviewed residents coming from Kharkiv claim they have been treated and fed well and that they “immediately felt at home”. Prior to coming here, they were stationed at another TAC - Sloboda recreation center.
A post on the website of The Commissariat for Children’s Rights in the Bryansk region led by Inna Mukhina mentions that there are three temporary accommodation centers in this region, where almost 90 children brought in from the DPR and NPR live. Another source indicates that refugees, including children, are being taken to the temporary accommodation centers in Bryansk, and this local outlet identifies "Triumph Sports Centre" as one of them.
The Leningrad Region Commissariat, led by Litvinova Tamara, announced on October 31 that two orphans from the Lugansk area arrived in the region, which will be given to families in the Gatchinsky, Lodeynopolsky, Kirishsky, and Vsevolozhsky districts of the region. The website also identifies a Colonel named Yuri Gagarin, who brought 367 children from Mariupol to Russia in three months (more details here on how Gagarin received the Order of Courage for bringing the children to Russia). RIA Novosti identified the Tsaritsyno Lake boarding house in the Tikhvin region as a main destination for over 200 children from Mariupol.
Some families with children and orphans from the DPR and LPR arrived in the Nizhny Novgorod region in February and were visited by Commissioner Margarita Ushakova (link1, link2, link3). The Boarding House for War and Labor Veterans is a main destination (link1, link2).
On February 25, a train arrived in the region of Oryol, which brought 351 women and children from the republics, Ombudsman Konstantin Domogatsky said. At the end of 2022, the Orlovchanka Sanatorium in the region received an award for accommodating over 300 refugees from the DPR, LPR, and other areas of Ukraine since the war started. Other sanatoriums receiving children, indicated by the regional governor, are “Dubrava", "Berezka", "Veterok", and "Solnyshko".
In November, Commissioner for Children's Rights for the Penza region Elena Stolyarova visited a temporary accommodation center in Leonidovka village, where 174 children from Mariupol live. The camp, an impressive complex in an area used for decades as a dump for Soviet chemical weapons, received a presidential grant of almost 1 million rubles.
On December 15, 2022, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Republic of Mari El Olga Toroshchina visited a temporary accommodation facility in Korta for the evacuated residents from the DPR and the Kherson region. In June, some refugees received Russian citizenship. Three TACs were prepared in the region, namely the rehabilitation center "Zhuravushka" in the village of Tair, Zvenigovsky district, the center for military-patriotic education of youth "Avangard" in the village of Kuyar and the sports school of the Olympic reserve "Victoria", which is located on the basis of "Korta".
The Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Republic of Mordovia, Yutkina Natalya, visited 164 temporary migrants, children and adults, from the LNR and the DNR accommodated in Saransk and Kovylkino. She also visited a center with citizens from territories bordering Russia in March. The exact addresses of the three TACs are here and on our map.
In May, Rostov Region Children Ombudsman Irina Cherkasova held a personal reception of citizens living in the temporary accommodation center of the Neklinovsky district, evacuated from the DPR and LPR and visited TACs located in the Shakhty district in March. A total of 188 TACs were prepared in the region, in Bataysk, Rostov-on-Don, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, as well as Neklinovsky, Ust-Donetsky, Krasnosulinsky, and Zernogradsky districts. As of February 20, 2022, 2,862 children were in the centers. One such center is the Zvezda sanatorium, which at the end-September 2022, hosted over 240 children. The children's camp "Romashka" received 250 children evacuated from Donbass in February 2022.
Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Samara Region Marina Tarasova met 112 children arriving by train in July from Donetsk, Snezhnoe, Gorlovka, and Makeevka for “recreation and health improvement” in the Kinel-Cherkassky district, Kolos sanatorium.
Commissariat for Children's Rights in the Chuvash Republic, Alevtina Fedorova, announced in July that the Salampi sanatorium has hosted 39 citizens from Donbass and is ready to receive more. In November, refugees complained about conditions here. In April, she visited six temporary accommodation centers for people from DPR and LPR, where 845 lived, including 189 minors. In March, she announced the arrival of several children from Donbass. Lesnaya Skazka, Mechta Sanatoriums, and the Vega social and health center were also mentioned as destinations for approximately 90 children in April 2022.
In December, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Saratov Region, Tatyana Zagorodnaya, visited the Sokol sanatorium, where families from the DPR, LPR , Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions live. In April, she also visited the Dubki children's health center, which hosts children from DPR and NPR.
Caucasus region
The Commissariat for Children’s Rights in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic region, led by Tlinova Svetlana, announced in April that it had received 35 minor children of different ages from the Donetsk republic, accompanied by 3 adults, on its territory for 21 days for recreation and rehabilitation. The 35 went to the Rainbow (“Радуга”) sanatorium, according to local media, while an additional 20 were taken in August to a boarding house in the Elbrus region for a “rehabilitation shift”. Besides Raduga, this article mentions three more sanatoriums: Vershina, Kavkaz, and Dolinsk, which were to receive over 400, including children. As of end-2022, local media reported social activists went to Vershina (Вершина), Mountain Spring (Горный родник), Orchard (Фруктовый сад), Swan (Лебедь), and Raduga sanatoriums to deliver gifts to children brought from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Republic of Kalmykia, Natalya Chuzhaeva, visited a temporary accommodation facility where children and parents from Donetsk were staying in April. Chuzaeva was one of the Ombudsman to have a private call with Belova on assistance to children and families from the LPR and DP two days before the invasion of Ukraine. Refugees were accommodated in two TACs deployed on the basis of the Cossack cadet corps and a multidisciplinary college, as well as in one of the rest houses in the Yustinsky district of the republic.
Two days before the war broke out in Ukraine, trains carrying about 1,000 people, including 200 orphans from the DPR and LPR, arrived in the Kursk region led by governor Roman Starovoit. The region plans to accept over 1,500 thousand people, including over 500 children in 20 temporary accommodation centers. Here we see a group of six children from the DPR in the Kursk region receiving Russian passports and who were about to go to families in the Voronezh, Kursk, and Moscow regions.
As of end-September, there were about 60 children in TACs in Chelyabinsk and Magnitogorsk. According to Evgenia Mayorova, Ombudsman for Children in the Chelyabinsk region, children have difficulties, particularly with the Russian language. As of November, about 1,000 schoolchildren from Lugansk and Donetsk visited health camps in Chelyabinsk Region. As of March, 20 TACs were operating in the region under governor Alexey Teksler’s supervision.
In the Kaluga region, the Vityaz health camp in the village of Mstikhino, Doz in Kaluga, "Galaktika" in the Zhukovsky district, DOL " Sputnik " in the Lyudinovsky district hosted over 400 women and children as of March 2022.
Eastern Russia
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Ombudsman Irina Senatorova said in April that the region is ready to accept 80 internally displaced persons from Ukraine.
On November 22, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Sverdlovsk Region, Igor Morokov, visited the temporary accommodation centres for evacuated residents of Donbass and Ukraine in Kamyshlov, Aramili, and Polevskoy. According to an official document signed by the region governor, 69 TACs were set up for refugees. The latest information from January 2023 indicates that in the Middle Urals, over 650 refugees live in 10 TACs.
In February, former Khabarovsk Krai Commissioner for Children's Rights Victoria Tregubenko announced that a total of 15 temporary residence points for citizens of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and stateless persons permanently residing on the territory of Ukraine will be opened in Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk, Amursk, Sovetskaya Gavan, and Vyazemsky regions. One of the centers was being settled at the Ussuri sanatorium in the village of Bychikha. In July, incumbent Ombudsman Petr Perevezentsev visited the Ocean (“Океан”) children’s camp, which hosted children from DPR and LPR.
Tomsk Children's Ombudsman Larisa Loskutova met with 58 children from the city of Bryanka, LPR. They came to Tomsk ‘with a cultural and historical educational purpose, to familiarise themselves with Russian traditional spiritual values’. As of March 2022, 700 places for refugees were available in 700 TACs in the region. In August 2022, Tomsk State Pedagogical University organised educational shifts based on a program called “Date with Russia: New Horizons. Tomsk routes” for 180 children from the DPR and LPR.
Occupied Regions
Sevastopol Children Ombudsman Marina Peschanskaya’s office announced that the city began to accept refugees from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, providing comprehensive assistance, especially to children. As of May 2022, 7,111 refugees were in the region, including 2,058 children.
In a May interview, former Commissioner for Children's Rights of the Lugansk People's Republic Yulia Nazarenko says that since February 24, 800 children have left LNR for Russia. Inna Schvenk replaced her in December.
