Karolina Hird

NEW: Russia is training Ukrainian children to become drone operators for future service in the Russian military or employment in the Russian defense industrial base.

Read more in the July 3 Russian Occupation Update from @karolinahird.bsky.social: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

9/ Ultimately, Russia is doing this to further its own (illegitimate) claims that Ukraine is an inherent part of Russia on a linguistic basis. Read my latest Russian Occupation Update for @thestudyofwar.bsky.social to learn more: understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

8/ The Ukrainian MFA condemned this new draft law on the basis that supports Russia's genocidal strategy in Ukraine. mfa.gov dot ua/news/komentar-mzs-shchodo-zaboroni-rf-vivchennya-ukrayinskoyi-movi-v-shkolah-na-timchasovo-okupovanih-teritoriyah-ukrayini

7/ The choice to select Ukrainian language education is seen as an overtly "anti-Russian" decision. Occupation administrations are likely keeping close tabs on families who elect to have their kids learn Ukrainian, which puts immense pressure on families.

6/ I assessed at the time that Russian authorities would often claim that students in occupied areas of Ukraine have the “option” to continue to learn Ukrainian but that the majority of students "choose" not to. This minimizes the lengths Russia goes to to restrict access to Ukrainian language.

5/ Russia used similar tactics following the 2022 full-scale invasion. In fact, the Zaporizhia Oblast occupation administration banned "mandatory" Ukrainian language lessons in March 2023. This amounted to an effective ban on Ukrainian language education on a more local level.

4/ Russia cracked down on Ukrainian-language education during its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. As a result, 214 total students (or 0.1% of all students) in occupied Crimea reportedly took Ukrainian in the 2020/2021 schoolyear. krippo.ru/files/22_07_...

3/ The thing is, Russia has already been significantly limiting Ukrainian-language education in TOT since 2014. This new draft order will basically codify total restrictions on native language instruction.

2/ The RU Education Ministry published a draft order detailing plans to exclude Ukrainian-language instruction at all educational levels due to "the changed geopolitical situation." Students will supposedly have the option to study Ukrainian on an extracurricular basis, but it's not that simple.

1/ Russia is effectively banning Ukrainian-language education in schools in occupied Ukraine starting September 1. Here's a quick🧵 on how Russia uses constraints on Ukrainian language access as a tool of coercive control in occupied Ukraine.

‘A false semblance of choice’ Putin’s latest passportization deadline dials up the pressure on civilians in Ukraine’s occupied territories — Meduza Ukrainians living under occupation have long faced pressure to assume Russian citizenship. But in March, Vladimir Putin turned things up a notch. In a decree aimed at boosting the Kremlin’s campaign t...

“When Russia says they’re ‘deporting’ someone, they’re not deporting them back to Ukraine.”

My story on how Putin’s latest attempt to force Russian passports on Ukrainians paves the way for more war crimes in the occupied territories. meduza.io/en/feature/2... @meduza.io

‘Neocolonial piracy’ In occupied Crimea, Russia is building roads to move weapons and stolen resources — Meduza Over the next five years, the Russian authorities plan to build and repair more than 600 miles of roads in annexed Crimea. But it’s unlikely the goal is simply to improve life for locals. Experts and…

Occupation authorities plan to build and repair over 600 miles of roads in Crimea — a project experts and Ukrainian officials say is meant to bolster military logistics and facilitate the illegal extraction of resources from occupied territory.
meduza.io/en/feature/2...

NEW: Kremlin-appointed Russian Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova tacitly acknowledged that Russia has illegally deported Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova’s statements further confirm the illegality of Russia’s behavior vis-à-vis Ukrainian children. isw.pub/OccupationUpdate060925

Lots of infrastructure developments in today’s Occupation Update.

Russian infrastructure projects in TOT serve as powerful indicators of Russia’s plans to physically integrate Ukrainian assets into Russia, generating economic benefits for the Russian state + complicating reintegration efforts.

UN commission says Russian drone attacks against Kherson amount to crimes against humanity From July 2024, nearly 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds more wounded in drone strikes on Kherson city and 16 surrounding localities, according to the United Nation's Independent Internation...

Russian armed forces have committed crimes against humanity by deliberately targeting civilians with drones in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, according to a new report by the United Nation's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.

YouTube video by Times Originals Putin's Plan To Destroy Ukraine's Identity I Times Explains

“There’s a very clear and concerted effort to deport Ukrainian children and adopt them into Russian families and erase their Ukrainian identities."

ISW's @karolinahird.bsky.social speaks with @thetimes.com about Russian efforts to destroy Ukrainian identity:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mIZ...

NEW: An international coalition comprised of Ukraine and its partners agreed to establish a special tribunal to investigate and prosecute the Russian crimes of aggression against Ukraine. (🧵1/3)

Read more in the latest Russian Occupation Update: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

Awesome to see @www.csce.gov calling out Russia's widescale deportation of Ukrainian children.

We over at @thestudyofwar.bsky.social have been doing our best to keep this in the public eye, so please check out more of our work on the ISW website:

www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

As Russia trains abducted children for war, Ukraine fights uphill battle to bring them home Around the world, abducting a child is a serious crime punishable by years behind bars. But when the kidnapper is Russia, justice remains a distant hope. So does the child’s return home. Since the s...

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has identified over 19,500 children who have been forcibly deported to Russia, Belarus, or occupied territories, where they are subjected to intense propaganda designed to erase their Ukrainian identity.

NEW: A source at State shared with me a memo from the DoD Joint Staff dated 4/15 confirming that the combatant commands support the Women, Peace, and Security program and collectively recommended to continue its implementation, contrary to Sec Hegseth claim that "troops HATE it"

NEW: Russia is once again preparing to escalate the forced removal and deportation of Ukrainian children during the upcoming summer months. (1/3)

Russian Occupation Update, April 28, 2025: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

This absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, become normalized. This is the reality of Russia's occupation of Ukraine- don't ever look away.

3/ Russia is actively recruiting teachers from throughout the Russian Federation to teach in occupied Luhansk Oblast as part of the “Zemskyi Uchitel” (“Rural Teacher”) program.

Read more from @karolinahird.bsky.social: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

Please, Do Not Betray My Crimea Crimea is not just a lump of land, it is the home to many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians under occupation.

Please, Do Not Betray My Crimea | "Crimea is not just a lump of land, it is the home to many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. In exile or under occupation, it is a part of our soul." Elina Beketova

I've also been keeping track of Russia's myriad human rights abuses and violations of international law in Crimea via biweekly Russian Occupation Updates: www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

I am begging Americans to take a little time to read about how Russia's capture of Crimea actually went down in 2014. There's a lot of good literature out there, but I broke it down in a report last year- www.understandingwar.org/sites/defaul...

Just a friendly reminder that 1) Crimea is Ukraine, and 2) the millions of people living under Russian rule in Crimea will basically be condemned to suffer indefinitely if Russia gets a carte blanche on its occupation from the US administration.

Dear Steve Witkoff:
An elementary lesson on Ukrainian demographics.
The fact that someone, or the majority of people in a region, speaks the Russian language natively doesn’t mean they want to be part of Russia.
It doesn’t mean they are not bombed by Russia.

NEW | The Rapid Support Forces has committed war crimes as it has intensified efforts to consolidate control over western Sudan.

RSF atrocities include attacks on the Zamzam refugee camp and are possibly constituent acts of ethnic cleansing or genocide. www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/afr...

5/ As always, I recommend reading anything and everything @hrl-yalesph.bsky.social has exhaustively written on this issue.

files-profile.medicine.yale.edu/documents/8c...