When Russia captured part of Kherson region in February 2022, Olena was 15 years old. The girl studied at school, attended a sports club, and lived in a family-type orphanage with four other children. When the invaders came, the girl’s stepparents stopped contacting the Ukrainian authorities, so Ukraine put Olena and the other children on the missing list.
The journalists of the Suspilne investigative editorial office managed to find out that after the occupation of the Ukrainian territory, the girl and other children were sent to the "Vanguard" camp in Volgograd in the summer of 2024. There, Ukrainian children were taught to become Russian soldiers. The camp was organized by the "Warrior" military-patriotic education center, established by Putin’s order.
Earlier, the Suspilne investigative editorial office told how the Russians, violating international law and their own promises, are conscripting Ukrainian youth into the Russian army. Having learned Olena’s story, we decided to find out in more detail about the "Warrior" center, its organizers in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, and for what purpose the Russians are militarizing Ukrainian teenagers.
Olena’s story: "mother"-collaborator and Russian propaganda
Olena is not the real name of the girl. We will not show her face either, so as not to harm her. However, we have to tell about her stepmother.
The family-type orphanage where the girl lived was in Kakhovka district. Before the full-scale invasion, the stepmother, Oksana Dovbnia, headed a village club: she organized thematic events and wore a vyshyvanka, the Ukrainian embroidered shirt, for holidays.
When Russian troops occupied her village, the woman began to collaborate with them and stopped responding to messages from Ukrainian services. The Ukrainian district administration put five children from the Dovbnia’s orphanage on the missing list. They were registered with the children’s service of the Kakhovka district military administration, the missing persons search department of the National Police in Kherson region told the Suspilne.
Later, the woman recorded a video that she, a "mother of many children", was renouncing the Ukrainian citizenship. In July 2022, Oksana Dovbnia became the head of the Tavrychanka occupation administration, and later the secretary of the Tavrychanka branch of the "United Russia" party. As we found out, she still holds these positions. In September 2023, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office informed the woman of suspicion of collaborationism under Article 111-1 Part 5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The woman involved children under her care, including Olena, in promoting Russian propaganda. For example, in 2023, they visited veterans of the so-called "Great Patriotic War" and told journalists that they supported the Russian military.
In addition, Olena, along with other children from her community, took part in the "Cultural Map 4+85" Russian program of "cultural and educational routes".
In the children’s camp
At the end of May 2024, the stepmother sent Olena and two other children to the camp for the "Time of heroes" military session, which was organized by the "Warrior" center, a Russian organization engaged in military-patriotic education of the youth. In addition to the children from Oksana Dovbnia’s family-type orphanage, 33 more children from the occupied part of Kherson region, 99 from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region, 140 from the occupied part of Donetsk region and 91 from the occupied part of Luhansk region attended this session.
The teenagers aged 14-17 were sent about a thousand kilometers away to the "Vanguard" camp in Volgograd.
Putin’s "United Russia" party released a video before the departure. It featured a joyful grandfather who hoped that his grandson would go into military service after the camp. Andrey Sabinov, the "United Russia" party representative of the so-called occupation "Kherson Region Duma", commented that the children would undergo military, tactical, and shooting training, as well as would learn to fly drones.
The voice-over added that the children would also practice parachuting and military communications.
In the photos and video, Olena was among the children being sent to the camp. She was already 17 years old at that time.
The woman who is hugging the children is their stepmother-caregiver, Oksana Dovbnia. In the public domain, we found several more photos that feature her and the stepchildren.
All trips of Ukrainian children to the "Vanguard" camp were organized with the assistance of the so-called ministries of youth policy and ministries of science and education established in the temporarily occupied territories.
When the children came to the camp, they attended the presentation by the Russian military personnel. On May 30, the Telegram channel of the "Warrior" center stated that the governor of Volgograd region Andrey Bocharov, a participant in the Nagorno-Karabakh war and head of the reconnaissance company during the Chechen war, visited the ceremony.
In the camp, the Ukrainian children, as reported on the "Warrior" website, underwent a course of disciplines that prepared them for service in the Russian army. In particular, there were classes on the basics of security, engineering, tactical and shooting training, tactical medicine, UAV control and countermeasures, and parachute training.
The children also participated in a military-historical reconstruction and "Zarnitsa 2.0" war game, practiced tightrope walking and an obstacle course, and fulfilled the "Ready for work and defense" standards. In addition, the children participated in "conversations about important things" and meetings with "heroes of Russia", that is, with military personnel fighting against Ukraine.
In 2024, four summer sessions took place at the "Vanguard" camp, which covers an area of over 10 hectares. Each session lasted for 21 days.
One of the first session participants told about the conditions in the camp in the blog on her YouTube channel. The girl from Luhansk region was 16 years old at that time.
In particular, she said that the children lived in tents, it was cold at night, and hot during the day when the air temperature reached 35 degrees Celsius. Some children were housed in buildings nearby. The girl did not specify how the places for living were distributed.
Each tent had 20 beds. There were communal showers there. There were not enough toilets, according to the girl. She also said that some tents were flooded due to the downpour. For a while, the children were moved from the tents to the building.
Children’s phones were taken away during classes, and were only given out during the break after the lunch. According to the blogger, phones could be charged only in the dining room (above the sink) or in the shower — there were extension cords there. It is unknown whether the children’s safety was observed in these cases.
According to the girl, there were 2,600 children in the camp during the first session. They were divided into 32 platoons. Each platoon had 20 people (the boys were separated from the girls). Each company was assigned a "military counselor" — a person who, according to the girl, had combat experience.
The daily routine included "conversations about important things" during which Russian propaganda was spread. Sometimes, the blogger said, the children were forced to run under the scorching sun without water or food. In the second week, classes began at the camp in the following areas: military training, tactical medicine, UAV control, etc.
During the first camp session, Russian "pop-stars" visited the children with lectures and concerts.
In the photos and videos from the first camp term that are available online, we were able to find Olena from Kherson only in the disco.
The girl went to the camp for the second time in July 2024. This was the third "Vanguard" summer session.
She said to the propaganda media outlet that she came to learn how to fly a UAV because the camp had "experienced instructors who had been at the war".
The Telegram channel of the "Warrior" center also published a comment from Olena that she liked her stay at the camp and that she would definitely come again, as she planned to enter a military school. In addition, after completing the "Warrior" courses, children receive bonus points for admission to Russian universities.
We have not found any information whether Olena was in the camp during the fourth summer term in August, which was attended by Russian propaganda singer Chicherina. It should be noted that due to the video of her concert "in front of fellow countrymen from the Urals", the Suspilne investigative journalists found the Russian officer responsible for the war crime in the village of Yahidne in Chernihiv region, Ukraine.
There is no exact data on how many children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine visited the "Vanguard" camp in 2024. In a post by Viktor Vodolatsky, the chair of the board of the "Warrior" center, on his Telegram channel, he mentions over two thousand children from the temporarily occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, as well as from Russian Belgorod and Volgograd regions.
"Time of heroes"
The "Vanguard" camp operates year-round, including right now. The sessions there have different names, but their essence does not change – Ukrainian children are taught military training and are encouraged to enter Russian military schools. The Russians describe it as "rest" for children aged 14-17.
The following photos show examples of such "rest" — demining, weapons training, and participation in "Zarnitsa 2.0" war game in 2024.
The summer sessions attended by Olena were called "Time of young heroes", or "Time of heroes" for short. The name is consonant with the personnel training program for Russian "veterans and participants in the special military operation" (this is how the Russians covertly call the war against Ukraine — Ed.).
Thematic camp sessions is one of the projects of the "Warrior" center. In addition, they also have a program for school and university students called "Military and sports training and patriotic education".
The "Warrior" center was established on the instruction of Vladimir Putin in September 2022. Prior to this, in his speeches, the Kremlin head systematically mentioned the insufficient basic military training and patriotic education of the youth in the Russian Federation.
The instruction was sent to all relevant Russian ministries, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergencies, the Ministry of Education, as well as to the FSB and the Russian Guard.
On May 11, 2023, 11 branches of the "Warrior" center were opened simultaneously in the Russian Federation. As of the beginning of 2025, there were at least 25 branches.
During this time, three persons headed the "Warrior" center.
According to the center’s website, from December 2022 to February 2024, its director was Nikolai Yazinin. From February to August 2024, it was headed by Igor Kazarezov, the former director of the Department for Cossack affairs and cadet educational institutions of the Rostov region government.
The center is currently headed by Dmitry Shevchenko, an official from Astrakhan region who, until August 2024, was the deputy of the so-called "minister of education and science" in the occupied part of Luhansk region and was responsible for integrating education into the Russian educational system. For this, the head of the occupation administration awarded him a diploma.
Dmitry Kiriyenko was appointed Shevchenko’s first deputy in January 2025. According to the "Warrior" website, he is a colonel, participated in the wars in Georgia and Syria, and from 2022 — in the war against Ukraine.
The chair of the board of the "Warrior" center is Viktor Vodolatsky. The "Free Press" website states that he was a locksmith, rose to the position of deputy director of Rostov region heating company, and later became a member of the Russian State Duma.
Leadership of the "Warrior" center in the temporary occupied territories of Ukraine
The branches of the "Warrior" center appeared in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions in 2024. In the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, the opening of a branch is planned for 2025.
Among the leaders and trainers of the "Warrior" branches both in Russia and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the vast majority are people with combat experience who were trained at the Russian Special Forces University named after Putin and located in Chechnya, at the "Warrior-Akhmat" center, the "Mashuk" youth center, or at Moscow State University.
Some of them are citizens of Ukraine.
In Donetsk region, the "Warrior" began operating in April 2024. The head of the branch is 38-year-old Oleksandr Kamyshov from Makiivka, Ukraine. He is a member of the so-called "People’s council" created by the occupation authorities in Donetsk region. He is on the sanctions lists of the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Russian website "Komsomolskaya Pravda" wrote on April 8, 2024, that Kamyshov, who has a university degree in History, believes that "the best way to instill patriotism in young people is a personal example". Among Kamyshov’s "personal examples", we found a conviction under Part 2 of Article 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hooliganism committed by a group of persons). The conviction was expunged in 2008.
Before becoming the head of the "Warrior" branch, from 2021, Kamyshov three times took children from the occupied part of Donetsk region to "conquer Elbrus". The children were from the cadet corps named after Oleksandr Zakharchenko, a militant who headed the occupation authorities in Donetsk region. Kamyshov told about this in an interview to the "Oplot TV" channel.
In April 2024, in an interview to a Russian media outlet, Kamyshov said that "80% of the instructors of the "Warrior" center have unique combat experience". He added that the center "has the task of taking 600 children to children’s health camps". This was about children from Donetsk region.
We found information about the instructors of the "Donetsk branch". In particular, Anatolii Yushko, Pavlo Hryhoriev, Stanislav Taranchuk, and Ivan Rekubratskyi were mentioned in the group of the "Warrior" center on the Russian social network in March 2024.
Anatoly Yushko was also one of the instructors in Volgograd, during the camp session attended by Olena. His Telegram channel has many photos and videos of the children’s training.
Yushko was born and spent his childhood in Donetsk, Ukraine. In an interview to a Russian media outlet, he said that he volunteered for the war against Ukraine. At first, he served as a sniper, and within a few months, at the age of 19, he was promoted to deputy chief of staff of the rifle regiment of the 1st Slavic brigade. According to him, he fought in Zaporizhzhia. He was demobilized in November 2022 by order of Putin on the "demobilization of Donbas students".
He resumed his studies at the Faculty of Economics of Donetsk National University and began his propaganda activities: he tells schoolchildren about "love for the homeland", about combat tactics, and gives lectures in the Russian community "Knowledge".
Another instructor of the "Warrior" center in Donetsk region is Pavlo Hryhoriev from the town of Yasynuvata, Ukraine.
A post by the "Warrior" center on a Russian social network states that Hryhoriev voluntarily went to fight against Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion, in particular, he fought in Donetsk region, and after being wounded, he underwent instructor training in Tyumen.
According to Hryhoriev’s posts on the Russian social media, he worked as a step aerobics trainer at a local fitness center.
In October 2024, Hryhoriev posted a photo with other instructors from the "Warrior" branch, including Yushko. There are seven instructors in the photo.
The branch instructors probably change frequently. For example, the photo of the "ZOV" propaganda outlet does not feature Hryhoriev in January 2024, but Yushko and Kamyshov are in it. In total, there are 10 instructors in the photo.
Hryhoriev’s last post on his Russian social media page was dated December 23, 2024 and was about the Russian Special Forces University, where he and Yushko studied.
Stanislav Taranchuk studied at the university with Hryhoriev and Yushko. He published a post about this on his page on the Russian social network. He also posted about being an instructor for Ukrainian teenagers in Volgograd.
Taranchuk is from Donetsk. He said that he went to fight against Ukraine as a student-volunteer. According to him, he rose to the rank of platoon commander, and after demobilization, he returned to the university and continued his studies.
Another instructor at the "Warrior" center in Donetsk region is Ivan Rekubratskyi.
He shared a post on social media about training at the Russian Special Forces University. It is unknown whether he participated in the full-scale war against Ukraine. Since 2022, he has been posting photos on social media mostly in civilian clothes.
In the temporarily occupied part of Kherson region, the "Warrior" branch began operating in April 2024 at the Genichesk Construction College. According to the Russian TASS, 70 college students became the center’s first trainees.
The head of the branch in Kherson region is Andrey Sabinov from Chisinau, Moldova. Before the full-scale invasion, he lived in Moscow and was the official representative of the "Union of Cossack warriors of Russia and abroad" in the Altai krai, Moscow, and Moscow region.
In 2022, he arrived in the occupied territory of Kherson region as a volunteer in the Cossack detachment, later the Cossack brigade "Don". He told about this in an interview to the propaganda outlet "Kherson news agency". Sabinov also told reporters that he had combat experience in two Chechen wars.
We have not found any information about other instructors of the center in Kherson region.
The "Warrior" center in Luhansk region began operating in 2024 at the Luhansk College of Auto Service named after Oleksandr Hizai. The so-called minister of education and science of the occupied part of Luhansk region, Ivan Kusov, told a local propaganda publication that the branch would implement an innovative "Cyber Warrior" project, which would involve training in drones, robotics, and cyber technologies.
We did not manage to find out who heads the branch in Luhansk region. Among possible instructors who will train Ukrainian teenagers, there is 24-year-old Ihor Hryhoriev. The publication on the "Warrior" website mentions that he fought against Ukraine after the start of the full-scale invasion, and before that, he had served for several years in the so-called "people’s militia" in the occupied part of Luhansk region.
In the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia, the "Warrior" branch was initially planned to be established at the "Lighthouse" youth educational center in Berdyansk, later — at the "Spark" children’s camp. The opening is planned for 2025.
In May 2024, one of the Russian publications stated that the director of the Zaporizhzhia branch was Alexei Lukin.
Back in February 2024, Lukin was the director of the "Warrior" center in Noyabrsk, Tyumen region. He stated this in an interview to the Russian radio station "Noyabrsk".
"No one knows where these children will decide to go with war"
"Vanguard" in Volgograd is not the only camp in Russia where Ukrainian children are sent and taught to become Russian soldiers. The instillation of Russian propaganda and the militarization of children in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is a widespread and well-funded by Russia complex of educational and upbringing programs.
Almost 300 million rubles were allocated for the activities of the "Warrior" center in 2024 alone. This is approximately 90 million hryvnias or over two million US dollars. Funding from the Russian federal budget is also provided for 2025.
Russia is going to intensify the politicization and militarization of children’s camps. On September 27, 2024, the Duma deputies introduced a bill aimed at "unifying out-of-school education for children during summer health campaigns".
The bill has already been considered in the first reading. It provides that the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation will develop a mandatory program for children’s stay in camps and methodological materials for persons working with minors in such institutions. The program will be aimed at "correct self-determination" and socialization of children based on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, as well as at forming in children a sense of patriotism and respect for the "feat of Russian heroes".
Re-education camps are part of Russia’s policy to eradicate Ukrainian identity from children. Even if the International Criminal Court does not classify the activities of such camps as a war crime, propaganda for service in the armed forces of an opposing state is prohibited by Article 51 of the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, says Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer at the NGO "Regional Center for Human Rights":
"In addition, there are numerous negative consequences for the mental and physical health of these children. This is the trauma of being forced to demonstrate loyalty to the aggressor country, the shame of betraying own country in some way. There are various children’s behavioral reactions to what is happening, and in general such actions can be considered as mental suffering that reaches the threshold of inhuman treatment. This is a separate crime against humanity and, in fact, even a separate war crime."
Russia’s militarization of Ukrainian children is also a gross violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
"Among the six serious violations of the resolution is the recruitment and use of children," says Rashevska. "Recruitment refers to a wide range of actions: from committing various kinds of sabotage, collecting information for the enemy, and ending with re-education camps and a militarized program. For example, such Hamas camps were included in one of the reports of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict as a serious violation. In practice, this means that a country that commits such a violation can be included in the list of shame, and various political reputational sanctions will be imposed on it. Today, the Russian armed forces are on the list of shame for killings and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, but so far not for recruiting Ukrainian children."
In addition, militarization, according to the lawyer from the Regional Center for Human Rights, is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as of international civil and political rights:
"Our organization, in partnership with the Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights, has launched a pilot project in which we are trying to hold Russia accountable in the UN Human Rights Committee for the political indoctrination and militarization of children. We consider such actions to be a violation of freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, because a child cannot say, "No, I do not want to, I will not do it".
The militarization of Ukrainian children, according to Rashevska, harms not only the child, but also national security:
"No one knows where these children, whom the Russian Federation is turning into its own soldiers, will decide to go with war. They have skills in mining and demining territories, know how to use drones, machine guns, how to parachute, have skills in tactical medicine. They are ready-made soldiers who can go to the front. Where will all these people be sent? Obviously, they are trained not for staying in barracks. This is done to prepare a potential mobilization reserve, because the Russian Federation has lost many people in the war against Ukraine. Russia needs motivated people. And these children, who were artificially separated from Ukraine and instilled with Russian narratives, will fight ideologically."
"Never in history has anyone considered war propaganda as a violation of human rights. Perhaps it is time for Ukraine to try to raise this issue as well," Rashevska added.
Was there a possibility to return Olena and other children to Ukraine?
Olena will turn 18 in 2025. She and four other children from her family-type orphanage are still on the missing list in Ukraine.
The Missing persons department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kherson region told the Suspilne that the children were put on the missing list by the Kakhovka district military administration. As of January 2025, a total of 678 minors from Kherson region who disappeared in the temporarily occupied territory are considered missing.
We asked lawyer and human rights activist Kateryna Bobrovska, who helped return from Russia a teenager kidnapped in Mariupol, whether it was possible to take the children out of the family-type orphanage where Olena lived earlier.
"There was a chance, but it depended on a number of factors," says the lawyer. "The first is the availability of information about the whereabouts of children. The second is the cooperation of international organizations. The UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or other humanitarian agencies could have helped establish contact with the children and facilitate their evacuation. The third is decisive action by Ukraine: if the caregiver refuses to evacuate the family-type orphanage, the body that concluded the contract with the caregiver must urgently make a decision to terminate the guardianship. In this case, the children could have been transferred to the care of another person or organization that would have taken measures for their evacuation/return."
It is not known whether Ukraine will be able to take Olena out of the occupied territory now, because, according to lawyer Kateryna Bobrovska, there is still no clearly defined mechanism for the return of children from temporarily occupied territories. In particular, there is no unified state body responsible for coordinating the return, rehabilitation and reintegration of children. The Ukrainian authorities’ ability to act in the occupied territories is limited, and we depend on international organizations that can facilitate, but do not always have real influence on the occupation administrations.
"Currently, Ukraine is using international mechanisms, in particular, it is appealing to the UN, ICRC, UNICEF, and is also forming a database of deported children through the National Information Bureau. However, these steps are partial and do not guarantee return," Bobrovska said.
In order to remedy the situation, the lawyer advises the following:
- To restore the position of children’s ombudsman, who should be independent and have appropriate powers to represent the interests of children, especially vulnerable categories.
- To introduce mandatory representation of the child’s interests by a lawyer in criminal proceedings by making appropriate amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the Law "On Free Legal Aid".
- To strengthen the powers of the National Information Bureau and clarify its role in protecting the interests of orphans and children deprived of parental care, in particular regarding their return from temporarily occupied territories.
- To use the practices of the European Commission, which emphasize the need to create conditions for children to grow up in their social and cultural environment. To actively involve international organizations (UN, ICRC) in the process of returning deported children.