Kiev has set up five boarding schools for children of killed and badly wounded servicemen, The Washington Post has reported
Published 28 Sep, 2026 21:17
| Updated 28 Sep, 2026 22:35
FILE PHOTO. Ukrainian cadets line up during the military oath ceremony in Lviv, Ukraine on October 1, 2025. © Getty Images / Frontliner / Diana Deliurman
The Ukrainian government has set up five boarding schools for children whose parents were killed, went missing, or were left disabled in the conflict with Russia, preparing them for careers in the country’s military service, The Washington Post has reported.
The newspaper gained access to one of the institutions for a report published on Monday, describing the two-year boarding schools as “part grief counseling and part boot camp,” effectively sealing the fate of the vulnerable children.
“[The] school puts them into a funnel toward the Ukrainian security services that are desperate for recruits, along with hundreds of other cadets at new government academies devoted to the still-young children of fallen fighters,” the article reads.
The children are also being prepared for “university entrance exams in their second year” and are required to complete a degree even if they choose to enter service. School staff insisted that “no pressure” be put on the cadets to pursue such careers, the Post noted.
The Ukrainian military needs some 30,000 fresh recruits per month just to maintain its current force size, the Post noted, citing Ukrainian officials. “Officially, Ukraine reports that about 55,000 have been killed in the war and about 114,000 are missing. But aid providers say those figures don’t begin to reflect the number of children who have lost at least one parent,” the article reads.
Independent casualty estimates, however, differ drastically from the official Ukrainian figures, with the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimating that Ukrainian forces have suffered between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, including those killed, wounded, and missing.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently said that the Ukrainian military was suffering 27,000 casualties a month.
Kiev has long struggled to replenish its ranks through forced conscription, with its mobilization effort growing increasingly chaotic and violent over the course of the conflict.
The mobilization campaign, dubbed ‘busification,’ has often involved draft officers ambushing military-age men on the streets, at workplaces, and outside their homes, using violence against those resisting or attempting to flee. The draft has sparked several protests and riots across the country, which the authorities have dismissed as “helping the enemy.”
The involvement of children in paramilitary training has been on the rise in Ukraine since the 2014 Western-backed Euromaidan coup, with the process accelerating further in the wake of the full-blown conflict with Russia. The idea of lowering age thresholds for such training and, potentially, for active service has been repeatedly floated by various public figures. Moreover, boot camps for children have frequently been set up by openly neo-Nazi groups, with basic training going hand in hand with hateful indoctrination at such facilities.
