Rizky Amelia
A young Ukrainian man who spent part of his adolescence under Russian occupation in the southern city of Kherson has described how he was transformed from a vocal critic of the invasion into a reluctant symbol of Moscow's wartime messaging — a shift he says he made only to stay alive.
Denys Kostev, now 22 and living in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera that when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he was an 18-year-old resident of a Kherson orphanage. Alarmed by the assault on his country, he recorded social media videos condemning the Russian forces. That defiance did not last. He was soon moved to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and his public posture abruptly reversed.
Speaking four years after the invasion began, Kostev said he deliberately played the part of a poster child for wartime Russia because the alternative was dangerous. Refusing to take part in filming, he explained, could mean physical violence or the threat of imprisonment. "It was useful to play this pro-Russian role," he said. "I wanted to live."
His story reflects a broader pattern that Ukrainian authorities and international rights organizations have documented across occupied territories: the systematic relocation of children from Ukrainian institutions and their exposure to Russian curricula, patriotic rituals and, in some cases, military-style training.
Kostev's path to that role was shaped by hardship long before the war. He grew up in an orphanage in Kherson after his mother was incarcerated and later died. Bright, articulate and photogenic, he joined a theatre club at the orphanage — an experience that made him a natural choice for the cameras that would later be turned on him by Russian television networks.
When Russian tanks entered Kherson in the opening days of the invasion, the city quickly came under occupation. According to accounts cited by Al Jazeera, residents suspected of pro-Ukrainian sympathies were detained and interrogated, and some were allegedly abused. In late 2022, while living at the orphanage, Kostev was also studying at a trade school. But as fighting intensified, he and other young people were relocated to the Luchisty camp — whose name means "Full of Sunshine" — in Russian-annexed Crimea.
Life at the camp, he recalled, was saturated with Russian state symbolism. Each morning began with the Russian anthem, and every Monday there was a ceremonial raising of the Russian flag. The orphans, he said, were cut off from outside guidance. "They're without parents, no one to explain what's right or wrong," he said. "At a certain point, you begin to repeat pro-Russian narratives." He added that at least one teenager he met there enlisted to fight against Kyiv.
The camp's administration did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment. Ukrainian officials have said that 84 Ukrainian orphans were held at the facility in 2023. According to Ukrainian rights groups, those who left were among nearly 4,000 children forcibly removed from orphanages in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. Kyiv has claimed that Moscow has moved almost 20,000 Ukrainian minors to Russia during the war as part of what it describes as a "brainwashing" campaign. The Kremlin acknowledges that children are being "re-educated" but rejects Ukraine's characterization, insisting that any children transferred were rescued from combat zones.
Ukrainian officials also say some children lost parents in Russian shelling, while others were placed in "summer camps" after pro-Moscow authorities persuaded their families to send them away for purported safety reasons. Kyiv further alleges that some children were taken from parents who refused to cooperate with Russian-installed administrations in occupied areas. Ukrainian rights groups have accused Russian forces and their local collaborators of interrogating and abusing parents — including checking their bodies for pro-Kyiv tattoos or bruises caused by recoiling firearms.
International human rights organizations describe the alleged abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children as one of the most serious crimes of the war. Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, told Al Jazeera that while the physical destruction of the conflict is plain for all to see, the campaign to take and "re-educate" Ukrainian children as Russian is "something more sinister altogether." He called it unacceptable and pointed to "deeply disturbing reports" that Russia is conducting military indoctrination with the aim of using some of these children in its armed forces. According to Ukrainian officials, roughly 5,500 young Ukrainians in occupied areas have been sent into Yunarmiya, or "Young Army," a movement that provides military training.
Psychologists say younger children are especially vulnerable to such efforts because their worldviews are still forming. Svitlana Chunikhina, vice president of the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine, said children have flexible psyches, adapt quickly to new environments and tend to trust adults — sometimes involuntarily, because they have no other choice — and take much of what they are told for granted. That, she said, makes them unable to resist Moscow's narratives. She cautioned, however, that this does not mean all Ukrainian children will inevitably be reshaped in the same way.
Ukraine is working to bring allegedly abducted children home and to gather evidence against those suspected of involvement in their removal. More than 2,600 children have been returned so far, according to the article.
For Kostev, the turning point came with escape. After ultimately getting out of Russian-held territory, he returned to Ukraine. Today he is preparing to fight for Kyiv — a striking reversal for someone who once stood in front of Russian cameras as a symbol of occupation. His account underscores the human stakes of a policy that Kyiv and its allies say is aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity in the youngest generation, and it offers a rare first-person view of how pressure, isolation and fear can reshape a young person's public voice.
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