How russia turns children from TOT into tools of information warfare
An investigation by the international project OSSRP, dedicated to exposing crimes, has uncoveredrussia’s systematic efforts to recruit Ukrainian teenagers from the temporarily occupied territories. This involves the “young correspondents” propaganda program under the auspices of the militarized “yunarmiya” movement during 2023–2024, which involved 140 active “young correspondents.”
Under the guise of media clubs and trips to “media forums” in moscow, children are being prepared to wage an information war. Lectures by kremlin “war correspondents” are combined with shooting exercises and military games. Supervisors demand that teenagers create “patriotic” content about “their own” and discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Journalists have documented how this system is breaking the spirits of Ukrainian children, using the real-life stories of several teenagers from the temporarily occupied territories as examples. Children who once recited Ukrainian poetry now, as part of the “youth army,” read texts about “loyalty to putin” and call Ukrainians “executioners.” The occupiers display these children’s faces on murals as role models.
Involving minors in propaganda for the occupier’s benefit constitutes a violation of international law and is equivalent to forced conscription into the aggressor’s army.
The Center previously reported that the kremlin views young people in the temporarily occupied territories as a strategic resource, attempting to create a loyal generation and personnel for its propaganda machine through a system of “upbringing.”
