Western policymakers often treat "soft" humanitarian concerns, such as returning Ukrainian children from Russia, as separate from "hard" security issues like future defense guarantees for Ukraine. In reality, these cannot be disentangled. What happens to the children taken to Russia or living under occupation is fundamental to the long-term security of Ukraine and Europe. Russia's systematic indoctrination and militarization of both its own and Ukrainian youth reveals not only its intention to prolong the conflict but also its blueprint for sustaining a long-term flow of loyal, combat-ready soldiers.

The original 28-point plan, according to the text leaked to the media, suggested establishing a humanitarian committee to resolve such issues as prisoners' and bodies' exchanges and return of all civilian detainees and hostages, including children.

More than 1,000 Ukrainian children have been rescued from Russia or occupied territories by Save Ukraine and the Bring Kids Back initiative. Each child's testimony adds to a disturbing picture. Katya, who was 16 at the time of the invasion, is one such case.

She left her home in the Kherson region believing she was headed to a seaside camp in Crimea, a place to rest safely away from shelling. Her mother even packed a swimsuit. Instead, after a long three-day journey, the children arrived at a militarized camp in Russia's Volgograd region.

"I take a swimsuit and they take us to the camp. I stand and look: where is the sea? Where is the rest?" Katya told Save Ukraine. "One soldier laughs: 'Who told you that you would come to the sea, to rest? No, you came to the military camp.'"

Katya became one of thousands of children placed in facilities where political indoctrination and weapons training were integrated into daily life. She learned to handle rifles, grenades and mines. "They told us to choose a specialization — tactics, medicine, emergency response, drone control or demining... We trained in the evening: mining and demining, throwing grenades at our feet, learning about anti-tank and anti-personnel mines." She described harsh punishments — hundreds of squats, night climbs up cliffs, hours standing in the rain during tank drills. When she proved an excellent shot, Russian officers urged her to join the army: "Girls are going too."

Despite catastrophic battlefield losses, Russia has engineered a youth-to-soldier pathway capable of feeding its war effort for years. Beyond its own population, Russia exercises control over nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children documented inside its borders — likely far more — and another 1.5 million living under occupation on the territory of Ukraine. These children are being integrated into a system designed to field future soldiers not only for Russia's war on Ukraine but, as Moscow increasingly frames it, for its confrontation with the West.

Russia's militarized youth programs have expanded exponentially. The 2014 Military Doctrine made "pre-draft training and military-patriotic education" pillars of force generation. By 2025, Moscow dedicated 66 billion rubles ($787 million) to these programs — over ten times the 2022 allocation. In occupied Ukrainian territories, Russia has overhauled schools to ensure that indoctrination reaches all children, even those who remain with their parents.

Russian leadership openly positions the conflict as a protracted struggle with the West. The 2023 National Security Strategy labels the United States "the main instigator... of the collective West's aggressive anti-Russian policy." Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned that Western pressure would continue "even after the 'hot phase'" in Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov has noted that Russia's defense spending suggests preparation for a possible confrontation with NATO. 

On December 2, Vladimir Putin claimed Russia was "ready for a war, if Europe starts a war," while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened retaliation for what Moscow views as hostile European actions, including sending peacekeepers to Ukraine or asset seizures. Simultaneously, Russia has intensified its hybrid operations — sending drones into Polish and Romanian airspace, violating Estonian airspace with fighter jets, launching cyberattacks on European public services and pushing large-scale disinformation campaigns.

Two major reports reveal how deeply Ukrainian children are being absorbed into Russia's militarized system. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) identified 210 facilities holding Ukrainian children in Russia and occupied territories; at least 39 provided structured military training. HRL defines militarization as "the psychological and physical conditioning of children to the technology, practices and culture of the Russian military," with children as young as eight affected.

Nathaniel Raymond, HRL's executive director, said they were struck by the scale and degree of industrialization of this system, which he says is larger than the Soviet Pioneer program and more intense than the Nazi "Germanification" campaign — the forcible assimilation of Polish youth. Likewise, the Hitler Youth trained adolescents for war. Russia has now expanded such systems and scaled them for a prolonged confrontation.

The Return Every Child report by Save Ukraine, War Child UK and the Human Security Center interviewed 200 rescued children: 55 percent described indoctrination; 41 percent received direct military training. Indoctrination in occupied territories begins in kindergarten, says Save Ukraine CEO Mykola Kuleba. 

"Already in kindergarten, soldiers arrive to tell them about the war as Russia's great victory and salvation from the Nazis. In schools, children are forced to join Yunarmiya or the Movement of the First, take part in military camps and at 18 they receive a draft notice into the Russian army."

According to The Reckoning Project (TRP), which has submitted its findings to the UN, these practices come in tension with multiple areas of international law, including protections for freedom of thought and prohibitions on coercive recruitment under Geneva Convention IV. It also notes reports about the poor treatment of vulnerable and disabled children in the hands of Russians and heavily Russified education.

"Classes include Russian language, literature and a module named "Conversations About Important Things", which focuses on Russian history/propaganda."

Even if the war ended tomorrow, Russia would still be a nuclear-armed state with a mobilized military industry and millions of youths conditioned through years of militarized schooling. The West must confront this reality. It can mirror Russia's tactics by militarizing its own children, robbing them of their childhood, or intervene where it still has leverage: extracting Ukrainian children from Russia's pipeline to the trenches.

The U.S. Congress has introduced several measures to support the return of abducted children. The latest bipartisan bill, introduced in both chambers, would require the State Department to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism if Moscow refuses to return Ukrainian children. At a recent Senate hearing on the abduction of Ukrainian children, Representative Michael McCaul emphasized that Russia's indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian youth "is part of Russia's effort to turn future generations against Ukraine, the United States and Europe... They are preparing for a large-scale war against NATO." 

A peace deal without an enforceable mechanism for returning these children would effectively legitimize their abduction and militarization. Recognizing occupied territories as Russian and giving the occupying authorities free rein to indoctrinate and militarize local youth would condemn 1.5 million Ukrainian children to this fate. Ceding additional territory would give Moscow even more Ukrainian children to reshape into soldiers for its next war.

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