"Cultural exchange": Russia sends children from occupied Ukrainian territories to summer camp in North Korea
Russia is sending schoolchildren "on holiday" to a summer camp in North Korea, where the children clean monuments to the leaders every morning, listen to speeches about the ideas of destroying "American imperialism" and blow up the White House in computer games.
Among those who attended such a camp was 12-year-old Mykhailo from Russian-occupied Makiivka in Donetsk Oblast.
Source: Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster
Details: What is known about the Sondowon camp in North Korea?
The investigation found that the Sondowon children's summer camp, located on the coast of the Sea of Japan and often described as a North Korean analogue of the Soviet-era Artek camp, was opened back in 1960.
The facility hosted not only local children but also school pupils from abroad – from Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos and several African countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign visitors stopped coming to the camp, but Russians returned to Sondowon in 2024.
Most of the costs of hosting children from foreign countries are covered by North Korea's Socialist Patriotic Youth League.
In 2024, Russian authorities organised a competition offering free trips to the camp in North Korea. To take part, applicants had to submit a video answering the question "Why should I win the competition?", as well as an essay on one of the following topics:
- "How I see Russia's role in the new multipolar world";
- "Why I am interested in visiting the DPRK";
- "What I would like to tell children from the DPRK about Russia".
According to Russian media, 3,500 schoolchildren took part in the selection process. Of these, 50 teenagers aged between 14 and 17 received trips – among them was Liza from the occupied city of Simferopol. Journalists were unable to establish whether the girl ultimately attended the summer camp.
In the summer of 2025, a second group of schoolchildren travelled to Sondowon. That time, 12-year-old Mykhailo from Makiivka, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014, went to North Korea "on holiday".
Suspilne reports that the boy's mother is a Doctor of Economics and head of the Department of Banking at Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovskyi Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade. No information about the boy's father could be found.
"Mykhailo studies at a local lyceum and takes an active part in competitions dedicated to Russia. For example, in 2023 he won a bronze prize at the all-Russian Wonders of Russia competition for his video presentation Venerable Ilya of Makiivka.
In the video, Mykhailo said he was proud that the 'DPR had become part of great Russia' and expressed hope that the war would end in Russia's victory," the journalists said. [DPR, or Donetsk People's Republic, is a non-recognised quasi-state formation in Donetsk Oblast – ed.]
What does the "holiday'" at the North Korean camp look like?
Upon arrival in the DPRK, the children are taken to Pyongyang, where they are required to visit an aqua park and a monument dedicated to the "liberation" of Korea from Japanese colonial rule – allegedly with the participation of Soviet troops in 1945.
There is no shortage of Russian propaganda at the camp itself. In one video, a camp participant – a history teacher from Khabarovsk – delivers a speech that is translated into Korean:
"Now that Russia and the DPRK have become allies, the days of American imperialism are numbered. Washington, which is rapidly losing influence, will try to unleash a new conflict near our borders. That is why we must remain vigilant and always be ready to repel new US aggression.
We, the Yunarmiya members, and you, our North Korean allies, will become the new heirs of our parents who serve in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Korean People's Army. Together, we will bring closer the day when American imperialism is destroyed."
During so-called "friendship evenings", the schoolchildren also wrote letters of thanks to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
"From what I see in the camp programme, it promotes the idea that Russia and North Korea are countries misunderstood by others – countries with their own distinctive cultures and visions of how a state should be built and how children should be raised.
This vision is not accepted by others, and therefore Russia and the DPRK 'need to unite to confront the world'," said Ukrainian legal expert Kateryna Rashevska.
A schoolgirl who attended Sondowon said that every day at 06:30, the children were required to clean and sweep around a monument to North Korea's leaders as a sign of respect for traditions and for dictators Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il.
By contrast, North Korean children were always required to bow to a portrait of Kim Jong Un hanging at the entrance to the canteen.
Visitors said that the activities included computer games with violent and politicised storylines, such as blowing up the White House.
Mykhailo told the propaganda outlet ZOV DPR that he took part in cultural and sporting activities at the camp. He admitted that the "holiday" allowed him to learn more about the traditions of the DPRK and Russia.
According to Mykhailo, during excursions the children saw five or six monuments every day.
"I really liked it. People there have such a highly developed cult of personality: they greatly honour Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un. People walk around and no one complains about anything. Everyone has everything, and everything is good for everyone," said the pupil from the occupied city.
Mykhailo added that everyone exchanged contacts at the camp, but there was no way to stay in touch afterwards, as the DPRK has its own internet network and messaging services.
Because of this, children could communicate with their families only in a special room with telephones. Calls were paid for, costing one US$1 per minute.
"Trips by children, including those from the occupied territories of Ukraine, to the DPRK are presented by Russia as 'cultural exchanges' – an element of so-called children's diplomacy. In reality, they are a tool of political propaganda.
Such practices have much in common with Soviet methods of using children for state ideological purposes and are prohibited under international law. This is not about culture or development, but about shaping loyalty to the aggressor state and its allies, including the DPRK, which is effectively complicit in the war against Ukraine and is recognised by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism," Kateryna Rashevska is convinced.
She believes that such trips will continue and that ever more children from occupied territories may be involved, with a distorted picture of the world imposed on them and aggression normalised.
Background: Earlier, media outlets reported that 18-year-old Oleksandr Yakushchenko had taken his own life in Russia. He had been taken there as a teenager from the occupied part of Kherson Oblast. Acquaintances said the young man had wanted to go back to Ukraine.
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