ISW: Russia promotes forced adoption of Ukrainian children

The US-based Institute for the Study of War has said that Russian military bloggers started circulating videos of Ukrainian children who were illegally deported and adopted into Russian families.

"The documentary series claims that Russian officials have evacuated over 150,000 children from Donbas in 2022 alone. It is unclear exactly how Russian sources are calculating this figure, and Ukrainian officials previously estimated this number to be 6,000 to 8,000," the ISW said.

The report added that Russia's forced adoptions and deportations of Ukrainian children "under the guise of vacation and rehabilitation schemes" likely result in a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign on top of apparent violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov additionally stated he is working with Russian Federation Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova to bring “difficult teenagers” from various Russian regions and occupied Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts to Chechnya to engage in “preventative work” and “military-patriotic education.”

Lvova-Belova has continually advocated for deportations and adoptions of Ukrainian children and she adopted a child from Mariupol.

Key Takeaways:

- Ukrainian sources continued to clarify the damage caused by the massive November 15 Russian missile strike across Ukraine.

- The Russian information space largely followed the official Kremlin framing of the missile strike on Polish territory as a Western provocation.

- Wagner Group financer Yevgeny Prigozhin is continuing to establish himself as a central figure in the pro-war ultranationalist community likely in pursuit of ambitious political goals.

- Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the directions of Svatove and Kreminna.

- Russian forces continued ground attacks near Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast.

- Ukrainian forces continued targeting Russian forces and logistics nodes in southern Ukraine.

- Multiple reports indicate that the morale and psychological state of Russian forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts are exceedingly low.

- Russian officials continued their efforts to replace proxy officials in occupied territories with Russian officials, forcibly relocate residents, and integrate occupied areas with Russia.