"Eaglets of Russia": the Ukrainian children being turned into future Russian soldiers

Two years ago, seven-year-old Oleh was declared an orphan and placed with the family of a Russian paratrooper. In 2022, his adoptive father served in a unit that carried out mass killings of civilians in Bucha.

How did this Ukrainian boy with a wide smile end up in Russia?

Oleh is one of 37 children who were evacuated from an orphanage in Donetsk on the eve of the full-scale invasion.

Their names do not appear on Children of War, an official public platform which currently lists 20,570 children who have been deported from Ukraine. It wasn't until spring 2026 – shortly before the Office of the Prosecutor General announced charges against those involved in the children's deportation – that the institution where Oleh used to live was mentioned in the Ukrainian media.

We have reconstructed the journeys made by several of these children, who travelled hundreds, sometimes thousands, of kilometres, and examine how Russia is forming their new identities.

This article is about Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children and how deportation erases their ties to their home and their ethnicity. The investigation focuses on the story of the children who were taken to Russia from the Teremok children's home in Donetsk days before the full-scale war broke out.

It is also a story about the challenge of bringing them back. Russia conceals information about the children, alters their documents and integrates them into Russian families and residential institutions, while the international mechanisms for responding remain slow and limited.

Ultimately, it is a story about how time is not on Ukraine's side. While the world searches for ways to respond, stolen Ukrainian children are growing up under foreign flags.

Donetsk

18 February 2022. Six days before the full-scale invasion. A group of children are waiting, fidgeting impatiently with the tassels that dangle from their winter hats, shuffling from one foot to the other. Children with no parents or relatives by their side, born after 2014, most likely in occupation.

They huddle together as they prepare to leave.

Oleh is lifted up by his arms onto an ancient bus. As is often the case with children raised in institutions, he looks very small for his age. The children wave through the windows.

On 18-19 February 2022, a total of 626 orphans and children deprived of parental care were evacuated from the "DPR" ["Donetsk People's Republic", a self-proclaimed Russia-backed quasi-state formation in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast – ed.]. This was reported on the website of the local "ministry of education" (the page is no longer available).

The news item ended with words that once again reiterated the idea of "home": "We believe that peace will soon come to our Republic, and everyone will return home!"

A few days later, on 21 February, Vladimir Putin signed decrees recognising the independence of the so-called "LPR" and "DPR". [The "LPR", or "Luhansk People's Republic", is a similar formation to the "DPR", but in Luhansk Oblast – ed.]

"Even under Russian law, the children taken from Donetsk were Ukrainian children. And they were removed unlawfully, without the consent of their country of citizenship [Ukraine]," says Kateryna Rashevska, an expert on international justice and legal analysis at the Regional Centre for Human Rights.

Little is known about life at Teremok before the children were moved. The institution's old website is no longer available, and its VKontakte page was not updated particularly frequently [VKontakte is a Russian social media platform that is banned in Ukraine – ed.]. In the few photographs that survive, children hold handmade paper flowers in the colours of the so-called "DPR" flag.

But photographs and videos featuring children from Teremok did appear for several years on the website of a charity that supported "DPR" military personnel. One video states: "The boys and girls did their very best to bring joy to the soldiers of Novorossiya [as they call the territories occupied since 2014 – ed.], who shield them with their lives from the horrors of the war being unleashed by the Kyiv junta". Children deprived of parental care were being turned into instruments of propaganda.

This came six years after the director of Teremok had outlined her principles for working with young children who had witnessed hostilities: "We don't talk about war… we don't give them weapons, pistols or machine guns."

Later, under occupation, the children at Teremok marked "Victory Day", "Defender of the Fatherland Day" and "Donbas Liberation Day". They dressed up in military uniforms and learned words that were hardly age-appropriate but reflected the worldview being promoted by the occupation authorities.

In one video, Mykyta, who looks no older than five, carefully recites a poem: "I may still be very small / but in my heart I'm a general. / I'll be a high-up general one day… / and my duty I will do always." He fiddles nervously with the hem of his jumper. Within a year, he would be in a children's home in Russia's Pskov Oblast, and three years later he would be placed with a Russian foster family.

"I don't need a real gun / I'm still a soldier without one," Kyrylo recites, practically shouting. He looks slightly older but still struggles to pronounce some sounds correctly. Within a year, he would be in a children's home in Russia's Kirov Oblast. That was his last known location – there has been no news of him since.

Kyrylo, Mykyta, Oleh (who would be living with the family of a Russian paratrooper in Pskov a year later) and all the other children from Teremok were photographed at a New Year celebration, posing with gifts and Ded Moroz ("Grandfather Frost"), about two months before they were taken away.

Those photographs made it possible to identify the children and trace their journey to Russia.

350 km from Donetsk. Rostov Oblast, Russia

It was a long journey. First they were taken to the Sputnik children's camp, then the Romashka temporary accommodation centre, both in Russia's Rostov Oblast.

In the summer of 2022, on Russia Day, the children had a visit from the Night Wolves – Russian bikers known for their close ties to Putin and involvement in pro-Kremlin propaganda events. The bikers gave the children rides on motorcycles decorated with Russian flags and the letter "Z" [a symbol painted on Russian military equipment used in the full-scale invasion – ed.].

The video of their visit has a jolly song as a soundtrack, so it is impossible to know exactly what little Mariia, a former resident of Teremok, is saying. Judging by her expressive gestures and animated facial expressions, she's probably reciting a poem. But what is it about?

The camera pans across drawings of the Russian flag on the asphalt. Then there are congratulatory messages for Russia Day, ice cream, and a group photograph. Many of the children from Teremok can be seen in this video, but several are already missing. One of them is six-year-old Vira.

1,200 km from Donetsk. Aprelevka, Moscow Oblast, Russia

Vira was taken from Rostov Oblast as early as April 2022. Along with other children from occupied territories of Ukraine, she was moved to Aprelevka, near Moscow, where Russian foster families awaited them – together with the regional governor, Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, volunteers, TV cameras, microphones and soft toys. The event was given extensive coverage in the Russian media, which emphasised the joy of these children who had finally found families.

Almost a year later, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court would issue arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of the unlawful deportation and displacement of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

After Vira stepped off the train and let go of the hand of Larysa Prylypko, the director of Teremok, she was placed with a Russian foster family in Moscow Oblast. That summer, Vira and her three sisters were ceremonially presented with Russian identity documents in red envelopes.

The following year, Vira started school. She was enrolled in the patriotic school organisation Orlyata Rossii ("Eaglets of Russia"), and a year later she was photographed alongside boxes of humanitarian aid collected by her school for "participants in the special military operation" [as Russia refers to soldiers fighting in the war against Ukraine – ed.].

1,207 km from Donetsk. Velikiye Luki, Russia

In the autumn of 2022, twelve children from Teremok were taken to a children's centre in Velikiye Luki in Russia's Pskov Oblast. Soon afterwards, representatives of the Russian foundation Deti Zhdut ("Children are Waiting") arrived to take photographs of the children and create profiles for adoption databases. The state TV channel Rossiya 1 was there too, to draw their viewers' attention to the children from occupied Donetsk Oblast.

Vitalik

Seven-year-old Vitalik looks straight at the camera. He has the same eyes and fair hair as the angelic little boy photographed at the New Year celebration at Teremok. He is probably being asked what he remembers about Donetsk. Smiling broadly with a gap-toothed grin, he replies: "Planes and the Sea of Azov."

In late November, profiles of some children from Teremok were posted in a VKontakte group in Pskov Oblast. But angel-faced Vitalik's was not among them.

He still had another journey ahead of him – 2,000 km to yet another residential institution.

Oleh

Russian media reported that Oleh's parents were killed during attacks on Donbas and he is the only surviving member of his family. But according to his adoption file, his parents are still alive: it says his mother was deprived of parental rights, and the only information about his father comes from the account she gave.

Oleh spent over a year in Velikiye Luki before being placed with the Pskov paratrooper's family. He and the other children were given talks about the combat experiences of a "participant in the special military operation" and the spirit, objectives and tasks of the "operation". According to a post on the Children's Centre website, the children learn that love for one's homeland is the trait of a real man, patriot and citizen of his country.

Oleh's adoptive father would later repeat this almost word for word to the Russian media: that the most important thing for his adopted boy is to love his family. And his country.

Oleh is, of course, not the only child being taught to be a patriot of another country.

Serhii

Serhii is now 10. He has an elongated face and alert grey eyes. He is the only one of the 12 children from Teremok who is still in Velikiye Luki.

Over this time, the Centre's website has built up a sizeable collection of photos of Serhii with the Russian flag: at autumn festivals, Russia Day, Flag Day, the "Young Patriot" game, National Unity Day and so on, every year. According to his profile, Serhii probably has a developmental speech delay, he attends a Russian special needs school, and he is "unlikely to become an outstanding student". The section entitled "Reason not in mother's custody" says: "Court ruling establishing the absence of parental care".

The name of the court is not given.

Serhii's adoption profile first appeared later than those of the other children from Teremok – in May 2023. He has yet to return from the "excursion" he was promised by Teremok's director.

1,578 km from Donetsk. Sosnovka, Russia

Semen spent over a year at the children's centre in Velikiye Luki. He took part in a kids' art and craft exhibition called "Russia's Military Might" which aimed to "help children learn about the branches of the armed forces and military equipment, and foster patriotic feelings and a sense of belonging to a great country".

Semen has been photographed in three different outfits, and his adoption profile – which stated that he has older sisters – has been posted on social media at least six times.

No family has been found for Semen in Russia.

At the beginning of 2024, two years after being taken away from Donetsk, Semen was transferred to another children's home in Sosnovka, Kirov Oblast, where he was presented with a bicycle by police and the Russian National Guard as part of the Wishing Christmas Tree campaign [run by Movement of the First, Putin's youth organisation – ed.].

Semen was given particular attention in the news coverage because he was reported to be one of the children who had been "removed from territories where they had lived for a long time". But Semen hadn't just been separated from territories. His sister Karina, who was invited to the bicycle handover ceremony and who had likely also been moved to Sosnovka from another institution in Donetsk, told Russian media outlets that she had not seen her brother for a year and a half.

Semen became an "Eaglet of Russia" at the new centre. He appears in photos alongside Russian paratroopers and holding a sign that reads "I am a citizen of Russia." There are also videos showing him in the audience at a concert that features children singing "Our army is the strongest / Our army is the bravest" and dancing to a song with the lyrics "A Russian boy doesn't burn in a fire / A Russian boy doesn't drown in water."

On the centre's VKontakte page, there are posts about at least 13 of its former residents who have been killed in the "special military operation". It is not known how many are currently fighting, or how many will go on to fight in the future. Semen and his sister remain in an environment that is shaping future soldiers for the Russian Armed Forces.

2,038 km from Donetsk. Uchaly, Bashkortostan, Russia

Angelic-looking Vitalik, who remembered the Sea of Azov in Donetsk, is also stuck in Russia's institutional care system. He and his classmate Maksym are among those who were taken away the furthest. After several months in Velikiye Luki, they were sent to the Urals, where their brothers and sisters were already living.

The two boys were put in the same group at kindergarten, and later the same class at school. Both have undergone "identity reassignment", forced into not only a Russian identity, but also a Bashkir one. [The Bashkirs are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Russia – ed.]

The reassignment was so effective that just four months after arriving, Vitalik declaimed a Bashkir poem so well that he won a poetry reciting competition.

At the Family Centre where they were living at the time, the children wrote letters to Russian soldiers, made trench candles and wove camouflage nets.

The Centre's director wrote on VKontakte: "Patriotic education is when everyone, as one, stands in defence of the Motherland. Adults and children alike."

Attempts to place Vitalik and his brothers with a Russian family began in autumn 2023. They stopped appearing in the Centre's photos in October 2024. It is highly likely that they were placed in a Russian foster family.

2,860 km from Donetsk. Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Another Vitalik from Teremok was taken to Moscow by Larysa Prylypko in September 2022. Two years later, he and his sister ended up in the home of a widow of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War [as the Russians call WWII, referring primarily to the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany – ed.]. The children were helping to keep the house tidy together with a social worker who became their Russian foster mother. She captioned one photo "The intertwining of destinies: children of the Great Patriotic War and the special military operation."

Vitalik's destiny is indeed being intertwined with Russian narratives – and not only in his Russian foster family, but at school as well. In 2024, he and his Russian class were taken on a virtual journey called "Donbas – the Way Home" about the "reunification" of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts with the Russian Federation.

A slideshow informed Vitalik that Donetsk and Luhansk were Russian cities and only existed "separately" in the last 30 years, and that during the referendum, the people "almost unanimously decided that their future lay in Russia and that they wanted to be Russian citizens".

Two years after this lesson, Vitalik won a prize in a drawing competition titled "Crimea – the Pearl of Russia" to mark the Day of Crimea's Reunification with Russia.

International justice expert Kateryna Rashevska notes: "First the identity of 'people of Donbas' was imposed on the children, and later the Russian identity, but the overall narratives remained the same: 'Ukrainian Nazis' bombed Donbas, Donbas is not Ukraine, there are many Russians there. The one thing we are certain of is that Ukrainian identity was not nurtured, although it should have been, and was prevented from forming in every possible way. Both the DPR and Russia effectively committed the same crime, planned by the Kremlin and funded by the Russian state.

International humanitarian law requires that children be raised within the cultural tradition they originate from," Kateryna adds. "I understand that in practice this may sound crazy, but, for example, Ukraine did not erase [local] children's identity in Kursk Oblast. Our soldiers delivered Russian textbooks to school students in which those same soldiers were described as Nazis."

2,970 km from Donetsk. Omsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia

It's spring 2026, and Nikita from Teremok is taking part in a military marching and singing competition. He and other children are marching in the gymnasium of a Russian school. He's being watched by a panel of judges who are assessing the precision with which commands are carried out, the synchronisation of the children's movements, their appearance, and the standard of performance and emotional delivery of the military and patriotic songs.

The soundtrack to the video of the competition in which Nikita is marching is a song that goes: "We're destined to serve Russia, you and me / To serve Russia – an incredible country."

How many times, over how many years, will Nikita hear these or similar words before they become his own conviction?

Donetsk

On 19 March 2022, Denis Pushilin, the head of the so-called "DPR" occupation administration, issued an order stating that the orphanages and children's homes of the "DPR" would reopen once the children returned from evacuation.

Three years later, children would indeed return to Teremok.

But not the ones who had been taken away in February 2022.

At the end of December 2022, Teremok's director, Larysa Prylypko, appeared in a video filmed by a volunteer priest who had brought presents to the orphanage. Speaking to the camera, he said that the children were still in evacuation, but that Teremok was awaiting their return. Prylypko nodded in agreement – even though by that time some of the children were already in Russian children's homes and others had been adopted by Russian families. She had personally accompanied at least nine of them.

We don't know whether she had a choice. What is known, however, is that even before the full-scale war, when Teremok children were evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory, Prylypko claimed that the conditions they were living in there were poor and it was painful for her to see children who wanted to go home – to Donetsk. The occupation administration and its "education ministry" were also demanding that the children be returned to the "DPR".

After 2022, Teremok kept running for three years with no children. The news items on its website were about training sessions, competitions and celebrations attended by the staff. Prylypko received a certificate of merit from the Russian Ministry of Education for her many years of dedicated service and significant achievements in the field of education. In 2024, she and five other employees joined the United Russia party.

In April 2025, a post appeared on Teremok's website declaring: "At last! We're open again." The institution then began posting photographs of its new residents. It also published a new curriculum, according to which pre-school children are expected to:

– have a basic understanding of the purpose and symbols of the armed forces (uniforms, shoulder boards and flags), the role of military personnel, the main branches of the armed forces, and military equipment

– develop a positive attitude towards the armed forces

– show a willingness to talk about the armed forces and its symbols

– express a desire to defend the Motherland.

That is, Russia.

How can the children stolen by Russia be brought back to Ukraine?

"International humanitarian law (IHL) requires family unity to be maintained and prohibits an occupying power from changing a child's identity, nationality, language or cultural ties. An independent third party must be granted access to children, and their return must take place voluntarily, safely and with dignity," says Kareem Asfari, a legal analyst at The Reckoning Project.

Under IHL, children should be returned to the place where they lived before being displaced, taking family ties and the security situation into account. In the case of the children from Teremok, that would mean returning them to Donetsk.

Myroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer with Save Ukraine who works to bring back children from Russia and occupied territories, says that since Russia cannot guarantee Ukrainian children all of their rights in the occupied territories and has no intention of doing so, Ukraine is insisting that the children be returned to its legal jurisdiction and to territories under its control.

"They [Russia – ed.] should have provided lists of all the displaced children to Ukraine or, if they did not wish to do so directly, through the Red Cross. They are obliged to specify where the children are – whether they are in an institution or with a family – and provide their contact details and access to them, so that Ukraine can verify whether the children are safe and whether their basic needs are being met."

In a written response to Ukrainska Pravda, Oksana Cherviakova, a representative of the Commissioner for Children's Rights, stated that Russia provides no official statistics, blocks monitoring efforts, and denies representatives of the UN and other organisations access to locations where Ukrainian children are being held. Russia also provides no information on children to the Central Tracing Agency under the Geneva Conventions and does not cooperate within the framework of humanitarian dialogue.

In Ukraine, efforts to bring back children who have been taken to Russia are coordinated through Bring Kids Back UA, an initiative which brings together state institutions, international organisations, non-governmental initiatives and expert groups.

One of the initiative's partners is the Ukrainian Child Rights Network. Its chair, Daria Kasianova, says that when children are brought back from Russia and the occupied territories, it is usually after relatives of the displaced children have come forward. In some cases, information about family members has been provided to organisations by government partners. But Daria cannot recall any cases of children being brought back to Ukraine after being adopted and spending years living with Russian families.

She stresses, however, that the names of the former Teremok residents who were taken to Russia are known to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Justice, and that these children are not "invisible". Still, having a list of names alone is not enough to secure their return.

As Kateryna Rashevska explains, their citizenship must also be documented and verified. If these children are not listed in Ukraine's demographic register and do not possess documents confirming their citizenship, they are in a legal grey area.

If a child's Ukrainian citizenship can be confirmed, the next step is to locate relatives who are willing to take that child into their family and go through all the necessary checks. In some cases, this may require DNA testing to be conducted in territory controlled by Russia.

If no relatives can be found, a foster family in Ukraine would need to be identified for the child.

"It's a painstaking and lengthy process," Rashevska explains. "It is extremely difficult to find people who are prepared to take on a child who has been deported, for whom they would have to travel [to Russia] and risk being placed under special surveillance by the Russian secret services."

But even if a foster family is found in Ukraine, the chances of bringing the former Teremok residents back are remote. Rashevska explains that once guardians have been appointed, the process moves into the realm of diplomacy and cooperation with Russia.

Russia would have to recognise the rights of the Ukrainian guardians. In practice, however, this rarely happens if the guardianship documents were issued after the start of the full-scale invasion. If a child has already become a Russian citizen and is living with a Russian family, the prospect of them returning to Ukraine becomes even less likely.

"The removal of children from Russian families to live with strangers, even if they are blood relatives, whom the children have never known, will be a traumatic experience for them," Rashevska says. "I suspect such actions would not be warmly received by the international community. There has been very little public discussion about how to bring children back in situations like this, because the issue is extraordinarily complex.

I can imagine a mediating state or Melania Trump personally requesting the return of a child, but that would be the exception rather than the rule."

Even if some of the children taken from Ukraine remain in Russia, they will remain there as a result of an international crime, Rashevska argues. Those responsible must be held accountable. A complete chain of responsibility must be established, encompassing everyone involved in both the abduction of Ukrainian children and the eradication of their identity. Otherwise, Russians will continue to steal children under the guise of rescuing them and acting in their "best interests".

***

Of the 37 children from Teremok who were taken away in February 2022, 18 have most likely been placed with Russian foster families (12 such families have been identified). The trail of 10 children was lost immediately or soon after their removal; one child disappeared after arriving in Moscow; five others vanished after spending time in Russian residential institutions; one child was most likely returned to an institution after a brief stay with a foster family; and two of the children, Semen and Serhii, are still in Russian care centres.

On 10 April, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced that it had issued notices of suspicion to individuals involved in the deportation of children from the Teremok children's home in Donetsk to Russia: the so-called "minister of education and science of the 'DPR'", the "head of the 'DPR' administration", and the director of Teremok.

We approached Daria Herasymchuk, adviser to the Ukrainian president on children's rights and child rehabilitation, for comment, but she declined to be interviewed due to her demanding schedule.

We also sent questions to Bring Kids Back UA, asking why the children from Teremok are not listed on the organisation's website, which contains information about deported children, and what would need to be done for them to be included. We also asked whether Ukraine has made any attempt to locate their relatives, and how realistic it would be to bring back the children who have now spent over three years in Russian families or residential institutions.

At the time of publication, we had received no response.

Since 2023, there has also been silence about these children on Teremok's VKontakte page. Not a single mention. Nor is there any certainty that the institution's new residents, like those before them, will not one day be sent thousands of kilometres away from home.

Children born under occupation, in families that for various reasons cannot protect them, are the most vulnerable of all. To the Ukrainian system they may be invisible; to the Russian system they may be the easiest targets.

They can be taken away with impunity. International law can be ignored. There's no need to hunt for foster families in the occupied territories when they can be found in Bashkortostan.

International pressure has not stopped Russia. While the world spends years searching for mechanisms in response, Ukraine is forced to watch through Russian social media and websites as its stolen future grows up beneath foreign flags.

This article was produced in cooperation with The Reckoning Project, a global team of journalists and lawyers dedicated to documenting, exposing and gathering evidence for the investigation of war crimes.

This publication was prepared with the support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Nadiia Shvadchak / The Reckoning Project and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU.

By Nadiia Shvadchak for Ukrainska Pravda

Translated by Myroslava Zavadska, Tetiana Buchkovska and Anna Kybukevych

Edited by Teresa Pearce