Russian officers train Ukrainian children for war – investigation

Senior Russian officers are conducting military training for Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and managing child militarisation centres. A new video reveals the activity of the Warrior (Voin) Centre, a military-patriotic education centre established in 2022 by order of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda and the Kyiv Independent

Details: Journalists from the Kyiv Independent have established that Ukrainian teenagers from occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts are undergoing military training from the Warrior Centre at the Avangard military sports camp in Russia's Volgograd Oblast. They are made to take part in sessions called "Time of Young Heroes", one of the objectives of which is to prepare young people for service in the Russian Armed Forces. The Ukrainian children there are subjected to harsh treatment as they are taught to operate drones, dig trenches, clear and lay mines, and use grenades and firearms.

Oksana (not her real name), 16, shared her testimony exclusively with journalists from the Kyiv Independent. Oksana, who lives in Ukraine's occupied south, underwent military training in 2024, when she was 16 years old.

The Warrior Centre's supervisory board is headed by Viktor Vodolatsky, a member of Russia's State Duma who was awarded a medal for the "liberation of Crimea and Sevastopol". Since the start of the full-scale war, Vodolatsky has been travelling to Ukraine's east, where he would inspect the work of the occupation authorities and urge them to destroy Ukraine's Armed Forces.

Vodolatsky's deputy and the commander of the Warrior Centre is Andranik Gasparian, a colonel in the Russian Armed Forces who saw active combat in the Chechen Republic, Syria and Crimea. He has been awarded two Orders For Courage. He was the commander of the 126th Coastal Defence Brigade, which seized Ukraine's south in the early days of the war. Some of Gasparian's subordinates have been issued notices of suspicion in absentia from Ukrainian law enforcement for war crimes: beatings, abductions and killings of civilians, mock executions, and the rape of an underage girl.

The Kyiv Independent journalists identified another 25 instructors from the Warrior Centre who directly conducted training for Ukrainian children in Volgograd. Most of them have fought in the war against Ukraine.

The Volgograd Oblast branch of the Warrior Centre is headed by Igor Vorobyov, a lieutenant colonel of the internal service who worked for 20 years in the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. He joined the war against Ukraine in 2022 as a volunteer in the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division and was the commander of an assault unit. He took part in the fighting for the village of Marinka. Vorobyov was wounded in the war, returned to Volgograd, and later became the head of the Warrior Centre branch.

One of the instructors at the centre is Yegor Sokov, a former Wagner Group fighter who took part in the battles for the occupied cities of Soledar and Popasna. Sokov has an Order For Courage and a Star for Military Merit from the Central African Republic. He teaches radio communication to children from the occupied territories.

In addition to Russian military personnel, the Ukrainian children at Avangard were also taught by instructors from the occupied territories. The Kyiv Independent journalists identified six of them.

One of them is Anatolii Yushko from Donetsk. He was still at school when Russia started the war in 2014. Yushko underwent militarisation and re-education and joined the Russian military-patriotic movement Yunarmiya (Youth Army). At 19, he voluntarily went to war and took part in the seizure of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. After demobilisation, he began training children at the Warrior Centre.

In addition to Oksana, 1,289 children from the occupied territories underwent militarisation at the Warrior Centre in Volgograd Oblast in 2024.

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