A roundup of news from the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG), one of the oldest human rights organizations in Ukraine. Since 2014, KHPG has been documenting war crimes in eastern Ukraine, and since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has been documenting events that show signs of crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes) across all regions of Ukraine. KHPG is one of the founders of the T4P (Tribunal for Putin) initiative, which brings together more than two dozen organizations with the aim of holding Russia accountable for the crimes committed.
Russia’s Indoctrination and Militarization of Ukrainian Children May Constitute a Crime Against Humanity
This was the conclusion reached by experts of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism in their report, “On Violations and Abuses of International Humanitarian, Human Rights and Criminal Law related to Militarization and Indoctrination of Ukrainian Children by the Russian Federation.” The report notes that Russia’s policy toward Ukrainian children constitutes a deliberately designed system aimed at eradicating Ukrainian identity, while torture and deportations bear the hallmarks of war crimes and may also constitute crimes against humanity.
KHPG provides a brief overview of the report:
Forcible transfers and deportations of Ukrainian children remain among the gravest violations documented. Ukrainian official records identify 20,610 deported or forcibly transferred children as of June 2026. Children deported to the Russian Federation have frequently been placed in foster families or subjected to adoption under Russian law, in violation of Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Articles 8, 9, 10, and 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
In addition, the Russian Federation has systematically obstructed family reunification while failing to establish any mechanism for restoration of identity, as required by Article 8(2) of the UNCRC and as recommended by the 2023 Moscow Mechanism Mission.
The Mission also concluded that the Russian legislative architecture governing matters concerning Ukrainian children in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine was deliberately designed and is characterized by at least four features::
- First, Russian federal legislation treats education as an instrument of state security and identity transformation, while federal educational standards identify the formation of Russian civic identity and loyalty as key objectives.
- Second, passportization—that is, the acquisition of Russian citizenship—has become de facto compulsory, since access to education, healthcare, employment and basic services depends on possessing Russian documents.
- Third, the boundary between civilian education and military service has been systematically blurred. In particular, compulsory subjects such as “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Homeland,” introduced for grades 8–11 in September 2024, incorporate weapons training, drone operation and tactical medicine into the standard school curriculum.
- Fourth, Russian legislation on so-called “terrorism” and “extremism” (primarily Federal Law No. 114-FZ and related strategic documents) creates a framework in which manifestations of Ukrainian identity, language and/or historical memory in Russia and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are treated as security threats. The introduction of extremely vaguely defined offences involving the “discrediting” of the Russian Armed Forces and the “rehabilitation of Nazism” further reinforces this trend.
According to the report, the key actors implementing this policy include the Russian Ministry of Education and Ministry of Defense, Russian law enforcement agencies, the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), and state-funded military-patriotic youth organizations, including DOSAAF (the Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation and Navy), “Dvizheniye Pervykh” (the Movement of the First), Yunarmiya, and the Voin Center, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Mission found systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the rights to identity, family, education, information, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, health, liberty and security of person. Although Article 3 of the Convention establishes that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration, these interests are disregarded throughout all aspects of the Russian Federation’s policies.
Under international criminal law, the OSCE experts concluded that the practice of systematic indoctrination and militarization may also constitute the crime against humanity of persecution of Ukrainian children on discriminatory grounds as part of a widespread and systematic attack.
The Mission also endorsed the conclusion of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine that the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children may also constitute crimes against humanity in the form of deportation and forcible transfer of population. It stressed that delays in returning children and the creation of obstacles to their return constitute aggravating circumstances.
- Read in Ukrainian: Індоктринація та мілітаризація українських дітей Росією може становити злочин проти людяності
- OSCE Moscow Mechanism report
ECtHR Schedules Oral Hearing in Case Concerning 10 Children Abducted by Russia from Crimea
KHPG reports on the case Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten Ukrainian children v. Russia:
According to the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, the European Court of Human Rights “granted the applicants’ representatives’ request and scheduled an oral hearing in the case of ten Ukrainian children whom Russia effectively seized along with Crimea in 2014.”
The applicants in the case (No. 6719/23, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten Ukrainian children v. Russia) are represented by UHHRU expert and lawyer Serhiy Zayets, together with lawyers from the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre.
As Serhiy Zayets explained, oral hearings are held “only in cases of particular importance.”
“The very opportunity to participate in a hearing before the European Court in a case being considered by a Chamber is unique,” the lawyer emphasized.
The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union recalled that the case concerns ten children—Ukrainian citizens born between 2009 and 2013, who were between one and five years old at the time of the Russian occupation. The children were living in childcare institutions in Crimea when Russia seized the peninsula. After occupying Crimea, representatives of the Russian Federation forcibly imposed Russian citizenship on the children and placed them for adoption by Russian citizens.
The whereabouts of the abducted children remain unknown. Following Russia’s occupation of Crimea, more than four thousand children deprived of parental care were automatically declared Russian citizens. Despite requests from the Ukrainian government, the aggressor state refused to return the children to Ukraine and initiated adoption procedures.
According to lawyer Serhiy Zayets, the case concerns Russia’s responsibility for forcibly changing the children’s identity from Ukrainian to Russian, their arbitrary adoption, and their unlawful deprivation of liberty. In the lawyer’s view, these actions can be compared with the Germanization of children carried out by Nazi Germany during the Second World War and condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the RuSHA case.
“The application is based on Articles 5 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to liberty and the right to respect for private and family life. A separate issue is raised under Article 38 of the Convention: Russia refused to comply with the Court’s request and provide information on the children’s whereabouts,” UHHRU noted.
Crimean Solidarity Ceases Its Activities
This happened as a result of political pressure from the Russian Federation. On June 26, the aggressor state added the civic movement to its register of “foreign agents,” together with eleven lawyers, civic activists and journalists involved in defending victims of persecution and/or reporting on their cases.
This is yet another—and perhaps the most overt—attack on a civic initiative that Russia has sought to suppress over the past ten years through intimidation, mass administrative arrests, and appallingly long prison sentences imposed on individual citizen journalists and Crimean Solidarity activists. The new restrictions are extremely burdensome and, most alarmingly, provide the regime with new opportunities to persecute both those whom it has designated as “foreign agents” and those who cooperate with them.
Meanwhile, according to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, in the first half of 2026 alone, 139 violations of the right to a fair trial, 29 cases of unlawful prisoner transfers, and 128 arrests were recorded in occupied Crimea. At least 56 Crimean residents are being held incommunicado in Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Aqmescit (Simferopol).
More details are available in the KHPG articles:
- Vital Crimean Solidarity human rights movement forced to terminate activities after Russia labels it a ‘foreign agent’
- Russia’s attack on Crimean Solidarity extends repression to all lawyers defending political prisoners
The Reform Prisoners Never Saw: What the Penitentiary Reform Strategy Has Actually Failed to Deliver
In December 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Penitentiary Reform Strategy for the period up to 2026. Its stated objective was to create a humane system for the enforcement of criminal sentences—one that respects human dignity, guarantees security, and facilitates the reintegration of convicted persons into society.
According to an analysis of monitoring conducted by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group and the NGO Protection of Prisoners of Ukraine in 2025–2026, prepared with the support of the Danish Institute Against Torture DIGNITY, six of the Strategy’s eight strategic objectives remain largely unfulfilled. These are:
- Adequate conditions of detention: overcrowding, only 1.42–3.97 m² of space per person, cold, dampness, inadequate lighting and lack of privacy;
- Prevention of torture and ill-treatment: inadequate documentation of injuries, informal hierarchies, the use of prisoners as dnevalnye (inmate orderlies), and obstruction of confidential monitoring;
- The right to healthcare: staff shortages, lack of diagnostic services, lack of independence of prison healthcare, and problems with the release of seriously ill prisoners;
- Rehabilitation and reintegration: individual programs that exist largely as a formality, unpaid and excessive labor, outdated equipment and vocational training, and the lack of any prospect of release for life-sentenced prisoners;
- Security and public order: informal control exercised by some prisoners over others, inadequate shelters, and the absence of effective evacuation plans;
- Digitalization: blank Internet access logbooks, lack of tablets and email access, blocking of human rights websites, and inconsistent paper-based record-keeping.
The seventh objective—establishing an effective model for staff training and professional activities—has been only partially achieved. The fourth objective, concerning probation, alternatives to imprisonment, and reducing the prison population, requires a separate assessment based on nationwide judicial statistics.
As KHPG notes:
The Penitentiary Reform Strategy failed not because it chose the wrong direction. It failed to produce the expected results because the state once again substituted changes to documents for changes to the system itself.
Two and a half square meters per person in a pre-trial detention сells is not a humane standard but an outdated national minimum that the state itself pledged to increase to four.
Four square meters for a convicted prisoner is not an ambitious reform objective. It is the statutory minimum.
Five square meters for a hospital patient is not a privilege. It is a regulatory requirement.
Timely medical care is not a reward for good behavior. It is an obligation of the state.
Paid work is not an incentive. It is a human right.
An adequate shelter is not an improvement in facilities. It is a matter of life and death.
As long as a person sleeps in a room where they have only 1.42 m² of space, works 13–19 hours a day, cannot obtain the necessary medical examination, and during an air-raid alert depends on whether a staff member will open the door to an inadequate basement shelter, no number of orders, electronic registers, or departmental reports can serve as evidence of a successful reform.
Genuine reform will begin when the state stops evaluating itself by its own documents and allows itself to be judged by the situation of the individual person it keeps behind closed doors.
- Read in Ukrainian: Реформа, якої не побачили ув’язнені: що насправді не виконано у Стратегії реформування пенітенціарної системи
The publication is created in the framework of the project “Documenting and analysing international crimes committed by the Russia’s armed forces after 24.02.2022, helping victims of these crimes and informing on crimes” implemented by Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Center for Civil Liberties and ADC Memorial Brussels, funded by the European Union.
