Ukraine trains military orphans to ‘replace fallen fathers’ – WaPo

Kiev has set up five boarding schools for children of killed and badly wounded servicemen, The Washington Post has reported

The Ukrainian government has set up five boarding schools for children whose parents were killed, went missing, or were 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,” which effectively seals 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 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 WaPo noted, citing unspecified 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.

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Independent casualties estimates, however, drastically differ from the official Ukrainian figures, reaching over 2 million killed and wounded. Kiev has been long struggling to replenish its ranks through forced conscription, with its mobilization effort ever growing more chaotic and violent over the course of the conflict.

The mobilization process has become disparagingly known among Ukrainians as ‘busification,’ with the country’s authorities largely remaining in denial over it and routinely dismissing numerous documented incidents as “Russian propaganda.”

Engaging children into paramilitary training has been on the rise in Ukraine since the 2014 Maidan coup, with the process further accelerating 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 been frequently set up by openly neo-Nazi groups, with the basic training going hand-in-hand with hateful indoctrination at such facilities.