Ensuring Accountability for the Militarization of Ukrainian Children

OSINT analysts and lawyers of the NGO LingvaLexa actively participate in the collection, analysis, and systematization of information from open sources, which is later included in the materials of criminal proceedings. One of the cases our team worked on concerns ensuring accountability for the indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children.

In May 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine announced suspicion against the head of the “Crimean Patriot Center,” Dmytro Polkovnykov, and part of the evidence in this case was based on OSINT analysis materials Source. This militarist training center was established by the occupying “authorities” of Crimea in 2015. According to its Charter, it specializes in preparing children and adults for service in the Russian army through clubs of initial military training, military field camps, and “patriotic” camps. The activities of the head of the “Crimean Patriot Center,” Dmytro Polkovnykov, were qualified as violations of the laws and customs of war, and in May 2025 he was convicted under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (war crimes). For the militarization of children in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, Polkovnykov was placed under sanctions by the European Union and Switzerland in December 2023.

A year earlier, the court had also found Volodymyr Kovalenko — the head of the regional headquarters of “Yunarmiya” in Sevastopol — guilty of promoting service in the Russian army among children and teenagers.

Systematic work in this field is extremely important. The policy of militarization and indoctrination of children, including Ukrainian children living in the occupied territories, demonstrates Russia’s desire to maintain and expand its military-expansionist policy by raising a new generation in the spirit of militarized chauvinism and distorted values. Within this imposed system of coordinates, the “enemies” are not only Ukraine but also the “collective West,” while dying for the occupying state with a weapon in hand is portrayed as a “matter of honor” and a “manifestation of patriotism.”

Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that in the occupied territories “any pressure or propaganda aimed at securing voluntary enlistment in the armed forces is prohibited.” This is precisely the violation that may be imputed to those who teach Ukrainian schoolchildren the “ideas of the Russian world,” glorify members of Russian armed formations, and call on them to “fight Ukrainian fascism with weapons in hand.” It is important to note that although this conduct is not included in the list of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions provided in Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, nor in the list of war crimes set out in Article 8 of the Rome Statute, this should not hinder ensuring accountability for it at the national level due to its socially dangerous nature. It is also important to consider the possibility of qualifying such acts within the framework of crimes against humanity, which were incorporated into the Ukrainian Criminal Code in October 2024.

LingvaLexa highly values cooperation with law enforcement authorities, especially when it yields results in the form of convictions and sanctions against Russian criminals. We will continue to work in this field in the future.