President Donald Trump and his team continue to push for peace in Ukraine. All signs indicate that Russia has zero interest in peace but is preparing for a larger war. The clearest indicator is the Kremlin’s systematic militarization of Ukrainian children, including those abducted and trapped in occupation, and Moscow’s long-term plans for these children.
Since 2022, Moscow has intentionally kidnapped at least 20,000 Ukrainian children. Experts estimate the number to be much higher. Many are forced to join the Russian military and fight their own country. All males in occupied Ukraine receive draft notices to join the Russian army at 17. Russia’s policy to militarize Ukrainian children is evil, morally corrupt, and anti-Christian, but at this scale, it also poses a security threat to Washington and NATO countries. Here is why.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow’s federal annual expenditures on youth policy have increased by 66% to $850 million this year. In 2025, the federal budget allocation for the “Movement of the First,” one of the largest organizations responsible for the militarization of youth, exceeded the entire federal budget allocation for Kalmykia, which is one of Russia’s poorest regions and dependent on Moscow.
Such a splurge is part of Russia’s new cultural policy, which aims to increase the proportion of patriotic (i.e., militarized and ready to fight for Russia) youth to 70%. And it’s working. Since 2022, Moscow has opened more than 300 cadet classes in Ukraine’s occupied regions. At least 160,000 Ukrainian children have already been enrolled in military movements, and this number continues to grow.
At the same time, Russia persists in indoctrinating other Ukrainian children, sending tens of thousands into notorious “summer camps” that masquerade as recreation while teaching children to dig trenches. These efforts are set to be scaled up. In 2026, Russia plans to finish the construction of its largest military camp in occupied Ukraine, a 27-acre camp called “Warrior” in Mariupol.
During a recent Senate hearing, Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at Ukraine’s Regional Center for Human Rights, broke the news that Russia has taken some Ukrainian children to military camps in North Korea. There, children are taught to “destroy Japanese militarists” and meet Korean War veterans who attacked the U.S. fleet in the 1960s. These early stories indicate that Russia is preparing its future army to fight not only Ukrainians but the whole world. Putin is partnering with America’s enemies to do so.
But the path to militarization has been shortened for Ukrainian children. They no longer have to go to Russia, Belarus, or North Korea. Over the last four years, the Kremlin’s strategy has evolved; in 2022, children were forcibly taken from Ukraine to reeducation facilities elsewhere. Today, Russia is focused on building military camps inside Ukraine: In 2024, three branches of the military center “Warrior” were opened in occupied regions of Ukraine. Approximately 1.6 million children still remain in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and Russia is determined to militarize them and all of those who come after them.
The available evidence suggests that Russia intends to expand dramatically its militarization of youth, as it needs more men to keep the war machine going. At the current pace, we can expect that some 500,000 Ukrainian children will be militarized and bred to serve in the Russian army over the next five years.
Russia’s approach to military recruitment cannot be matched by NATO and its allies. Moscow’s aggressive policy to increase its military manpower means the Western alliance is facing not only a major militarization campaign comparable in scale only to the Nazi’s Hitler’s Youth, but also a real national security risk.
As Washington attempts to broker the talks between Russia and Ukraine, it should keep in mind that it may be more efficient (and needless to say, morally right) to save Ukrainian children from Russian captivity now than to face them on the battlefield in five years. Ukrainian children will be the first to be deployed if Russia invades NATO. Indeed, Ukrainian children who were militarized in 2014 when Russia took over the Donbas have already been killed as Russian soldiers since the full-scale war in 2022.
TO ACHIEVE PEACE IN UKRAINE, TRUMP HAS TO FACE DOWN PUTIN
First lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump get it. They understand the importance of freeing Ukraine’s children and have been at the center of efforts to release more Ukrainian children. Hats off to the president and first lady.
But policy must follow. Russia’s policies against Ukrainian children are the actions of a terrorist state that jeopardize our security and peace. Since Russia does not shy away from taking Ukrainian children to North Korea — one of the four countries designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism — it deserves the same designation, especially when the bill enjoys substantial bipartisan support already.
Katya Pavlevych, founder of Forget Us Not, is an adviser on the abduction of Ukrainian children at Razom for Ukraine.