Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been made to take “patriotic training” by Moscow after being kidnapped in Russia’s invasion.
According to Kyiv’s Centre for National Resistance, more than 400 children had been sent to summer camps in Russia.
The group has now accused Russian officials of trying to brainwash the children at the camps by inviting Russian pop bands and holding “patriotic lessons” in a bid to win their allegiances.
The group described the efforts as a “policy of erasing the identity of an entire generation of Ukrainians”.
At least 200 were said to have been moved from the town of Dovzhansk, Luhansk, to the Black Sea coast resort of Anapa.
READ MORE Putin ally threatens ‘global nuclear fire’ if Ukraine seizes ‘Russian land’
Another 150 children were sent from Kherson’s Kakhovka and Genichesk districts.
A further 50 were sent from occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia to another unnamed location on the Russian coast of the Black Sea.
Russia has admitted it has taken children from occupied areas, saying they “evacuated” 744,000 children from Ukraine.
In March, Vladimir Putin and his ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova were issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) this spring over the forcible removal of Ukrainian children.
Previously, Daily Express US spoke to experts who said Russia is enacting a mass deportation of Ukrainian children in an attempt to wipe out their Ukrainian identity.
Daria Herasymchuk, the advisor to President Zelensky on Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, said her office estimates a staggering 200,000 to 300,000 children have been deported to Russia.
Of these, only 385 children have been returned to Ukraine and reunited with their families.
“Some of those children are being sent to health institutions in Russia, to camps in Russia or Belarus or directly to [Russian] foster families illegally,” Heraymchuk said.
“They don’t let the children contact their parents. They are using every possible way to separate them from their biological parents.”
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Meanwhile, Express.co.uk reported a horrific clip that shows a group of children screaming and running from a Russian missile strike.
Two of Moscow’s Iskander missiles hit the Reikartz Hotel in Zaporizhzhia city centre last Thursday evening.
One died and 16 were left injured, including four children, from the attack on the hotel on the bank of the Dnipro River.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said when confirming the incident: “Zaporizhzhia. The city suffers daily from Russian shelling.
“A fire broke out in a civilian building after the occupiers hit it with a missile.”
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