Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
I grew up during the Iran–Iraq War. Though I was very young, I still remember too much. I know the feeling of fear that sits in your chest like a stone, waiting for the next bomb to drop, wondering if you’ll make it to the shelter in time, wondering if your mother will come back, wondering what happens if everyone dies and you don’t.
War doesn’t only tear apart cities, homes, and borders; it tears into children. It rewires their minds, breaks their sense of safety, and steals pieces of their identity they will never get back.
But at least in my generation, the trauma came from being caught in war. No one told us to pick up a weapon or salute a flag; the bombs and the bodies were enough to rob us of years.
What is happening today in Russian-occupied Ukraine is something far darker:
The intentional, systematic militarization of children.
Not just collateral trauma, unintentional damage, and the natural consequence of war, but a project, a program, a system.
A recent BBC Persian investigation exposes how, inside Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, places like Kherson, Mariupol, and Donetsk, children as young as eight are being absorbed into a militarized youth movement called Yunarmiya (“Young Army”, Russia’s nationwide youth-military system created in 2016).
According to the report:
- Children receive military uniforms, red berets, medals, and privileges.
- Those who refuse to join face punishment, including lowered grades.
- Some are forced to change schools multiple times as Russian-run administrations expand these programs.
- In many schools, membership is not “voluntary” at all; parents are pressured, threatened, or denied services if they don’t comply.
One 12-year-old Ukrainian boy told the BBC that children who joined Yunarmiya were rewarded with the highest grades, even if they understood nothing in class. Those who refused were punished.
Under this system, Ukrainian children are taught to:
- Kiss the Russian flag
- Sing the Russian national anthem
- Assemble and operate firearms
- Participate in mock combat
- Prepare for “battle against Ukraine” if “Ukraine attacks Russia.”
- Accept the idea that Ukraine is a “Nazi state” with no legitimacy
This is identity erasure. It is teaching children to turn against their own nation, their own history, and ultimately, their own people.
The BBC Persian report states:
- Around 1.8 million children are members of Yunarmiya inside Russia.
- At least 43,000 children are living in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
- In Donetsk alone, 180 official units are operating under this program.
These numbers alone show this is not an isolated abuse but a national program. This is a state-run system designed to manufacture a new generation of fighters loyal not to their homeland, but to Moscow.
Ukrainian authorities say at least 19,600 children have been forcibly transferred to Russia since the invasion began. Many have been placed in facilities where they undergo “patriotic training,” military drills, and indoctrination. Some, upon turning 18, are reportedly sent to the Russian army.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for:
- Vladimir Putin
- Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Children’s Commissioner
They are accused of the forced deportation and re-education of Ukrainian children, which qualifies as a war crime under international law.
The investigation confirms that children, both Russian and Ukrainian, are being trained in:
- Rifle assembly
- Shooting
- Grenade handling
- Drone operation
- Field medicine
- Tactical movement
- Military engineering
Some of the training takes place in camps named “Warrior” and “Avangard.”
Others are framed as school programs, after-school clubs, or “patriotic competitions.”
In one eight-month period (Jan–Aug 2025), Yunarmiya held 1,275 military-style events in the occupied Donetsk region alone.
This is a crime against children, a crime against identity, memory, heritage, and the right of a nation to raise its next generation in its own image.
These children’s childhoods are stolen with permission, with structure, with uniforms, and with the approval of a state that sees them as future soldiers, not future adults. And the most horrifying part is this: the world is watching it happen. Nations monitor it. Intelligence agencies know about it. Diplomats discuss it. Human-rights organizations publish reports about it. And yet the machine keeps running because the global response is tepid, fragmented, or politically convenient to ignore.
Some countries quietly look the other way for economic reasons. Some do nothing out of fear of provoking Russia. Some condemn with words but refuse action.
Some even enable it through back-channel cooperation, cheap energy deals, or strategic neutrality.
And the international media, the same media that claims to protect the vulnerable, covers this story in brief spurts, with cautious language, before moving on to the next headline. Major outlets avoid calling it what it is: the organized militarization and cultural erasure of children, carried out in broad daylight by a nuclear power.
Worst of all, human society, everyday people across the world, have adapted to this story as if it’s just another tragic inconvenience of war, something inevitable, something “complicated,” something that will sort itself out.
War can destroy childhood, but what Russia is doing is manufacturing the destruction of childhood.
And before anyone tries to weaponize my words: this is not about defending Ukraine’s government. This is not about politics, alliances, or choosing sides between corrupt administrations.
This is about children, God’s children, whose innocence is being shattered for the ambitions of men who see them not as souls to protect, but as tools to use.
I say this as someone who watched jihad use children as shields, messengers, fighters, and martyrs. For decades, the world dismissed it as “their culture,” “their region,” or “their conflict.” And now here we are watching a modern, nuclear, supposedly sophisticated nation adopt the same tactics.
When evil goes unchallenged long enough, it stops looking like evil.
It starts looking like policy, and it becomes the norm.
This is not about geopolitics. This is about a truth every parent understands instinctively:
Children are not soldiers.
Children are not propaganda.
Children are not nation-building tools.
Children are off limits!
If the world cannot defend the most innocent, then the world has already chosen its future, and it is a dark one.
