Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The Russian region describes sending the children as “health improvement” and “free recreation”.
Summer camp is supposed to be about roasting marshmallows, making new friends, and playing games in the woods.
But across the globe, youth programs are sometimes used for far more serious purposes.
When political conflict shifts from the battlefield to the classroom, young lives can be rewritten in ways nobody expected.
And for the abducted Ukrainian children now being held in Russia, “summer camp” has a far more sinister meaning to the words.
A dark transformation
According to Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance (CNR), the Russian region of Volgograd is framing summer camps for Ukrainian children as “health improvement” and “free recreation” when they are in fact being send to training camps focusing on military training.
According to the CNR, teenagers undergo rigorous combat training instead of playing sports. They learn how to handle weapons, study tactical medicine, and practice battlefield tactics.
Orphaned children face the toughest challenge. According to recent reports, many of these young people end up in Russian orphanages or military boarding schools after camp ends.
The final goal is to erase their original identity completely. In a recent statement, the Center for National Resistance explained the situation clearly. “Through military camps and boarding institutions, the occupiers are shaping a new generation that they view as a future personnel reserve for the Russian army and security structures,” the group said.
Corporate funding uncovered
Far from a small military project, this operation relies on a massive network of corporate cash. Some of the biggest businesses in Russia are paying for it.
A new study by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab exposed the deep corporate connection. State-backed energy giants like Gazprom and Rosneft have been funding these operations. By targeting vulnerable youth, these firms paid for the travel and re-education programs of over 2,000 children between 2022 and 2025.
Researchers tracked at least 2,158 young people from occupied areas like Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Most were sent to six specific camps across Russia and occupied Crimea, including facilities named Prometey and Signal.
Factory work instead
Classroom lessons are only the beginning. Soon, many of these children are put to work making actual military gear for the frontline.
At the All-Russian Children’s Centre Change in Krasnodar Krai, investigators found minors doing heavy factory labour. Instead of playing sports, they built drones.
They also put together mine detectors and rapid-loading devices for assault rifles.
Sources: Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab
