The victory of a ‘fighter’ against Moscow’s child indoctrination machine

When Ksenia Koldin describes the brainwashing her brother, Sergii, underwent, she traces several imaginary circles in the air with her hands. What she’s trying to say is that the manipulation isn’t direct; it’s indirect, more subtle. Koldin, originally from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, is 21 years old. She was 17 when Russian tanks rolled into Vovchansk, where she lived, four years ago. She and her brother were living with a foster family after their parents lost custody due to problems with alcohol. Koldin, who participated Wednesday in the Global Forum for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, held in Madrid, admits that this background made them easy prey for Russian influence. And Sergii, at 10 years old, especially. “He was easy to manipulate,” she says. In the summer of the first year of the invasion, they had to cross into Russia using different routes. The boy even came to disown his homeland after months of Russian indoctrination. But Koldin, who describes herself as a “fighter,” did not give up and brought him back home.

Ksenia and Sergii’s journey is similar to that of thousands of other Ukrainian children following the start of the Russian occupation. The difference is that their case had a happy ending. The Ukrainian government has identified more than 19,500 children deported or forcibly removed from their homes by Russian authorities since February 2022, although it estimates the number is much higher — Yale University puts the figure as high as 35,000. Kyiv accuses Moscow of kidnapping these children and brainwashing them as part of a systematic campaign to destroy the country’s future. It is for this practice that the International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for the rights of the child, Maria Lvova-Belova.

Kyiv estimates that Moscow has forcibly transferred 19,500 children

Koldin uses her hands to express herself. She makes air quotes with her fingers to emphasize certain phrases. She allows herself a smile only rarely. “When the invasion broke out, I probably wasn’t happy,” she says, “we were resettling.” They had had to exchange their biological family for a foster family. She had a “simple” life; she was studying with the idea of ​​becoming a psychologist someday, back in her native Kharkiv. The bombs began to devastate Vovchansk from the very first minute; they brought down a bridge near her home and the walls shook. They spent the first few weeks between the bomb shelter and the house. There was little to eat, the Russians were attacking the schools, and despair was spreading. And the cycle of manipulation began to turn.

“Some of my foster mother’s neighbors were collaborating with the Russians and started pressuring her to send my brother to a ‘summer camp’ in Russia,” the young woman recounts. Communication was difficult with almost no cell phone service, but propaganda spread from house to house, from neighborhood to neighborhood. They spoke wonders of these recreation camps. A Yale University investigation last September estimated that the Kremlin has transferred thousands of Ukrainian children to 210 re-education centers. These are facilities where they receive both ideological and, sometimes, military indoctrination. This web, which crisscrosses federal Russia and the occupied territories, even reaches the Songdowon camp in North Korea, a staunch ally of Russia.

Koldin didn’t want her brother to leave; he, however, wanted to go himself, because he had a friend, Sasha, who had spoken highly of the camp. “Back then, we didn’t know it was so dangerous, or that some wouldn’t return for months,” she continues. In August, Sergii left for Russia. She did too, though over 600 miles away. There wasn’t much to do in Vovchansk, and her foster mother encouraged her to continue her studies in Shebekino, in the Belgorod region of Russia, where the woman maintained contact with a former partner. The young woman frequently uses the word “pressure,” the pressure from both friends and strangers to leave her homeland. She remembers a teacher visiting her home to encourage her to go to Russia. “I had no other choice,” she admits.

While her brother remained at the re-education center, exclusively for Ukrainian children — Koldin points out, “If it were a playground, why weren’t there any Russians?” — she began a hairdressing course. She wasn’t spared the indoctrination. Every Monday, the young woman recalls, she had to sing the national anthem and listen to fiery speeches about Russian greatness and glory and the respect due to its leader, Putin. “I felt depressed and wanted to return to Ukraine,” she says. She had turned 18 and was presented with the paperwork for a Russian passport. She refused and was expelled from the center. It was at that moment that she began the process of bringing Sergii back to her country with her.

The number of returned children is devastating. According to records from the Ukrainian presidential program Bring Kids Back, only 2,003 children have managed to return. The effort is a combined one: Ukrainian authorities are working on it, but so are non-profit organizations, private individuals, lawyers, and even third countries that mediate to recover the children. In Sergii’s case, his sister’s tenacity was fundamental. By the time she left her training course in Shebekino, the boy was in foster care with a Russian family in Abinsk, in the Krasnodar region. As soon as these new parents learned that Koldin wanted to take him, they tried to sever all communication between the two siblings.

The young woman first contacted social services in Kharkiv, but they admitted they couldn’t arrange for her brother’s return. She had the necessary paperwork, but she needed intermediaries. She contacted the organization Save Ukraine, with which she continues to collaborate, and through them, she reached Russian social services. She encountered the foster family again. They didn’t want to reveal Sergii’s location. “But I didn’t give up and I pressured social services to do their job and tell me where he was,” she continues with a determined expression. She wouldn’t leave Russia without him. With the paperwork in hand, the Russian authorities had to arrange a meeting. Her brother had changed. Nine months had passed since they had last seen each other.

“I was able to hug him, but he was very distant, he seemed nervous, as if he were hiding something from me,” Koldin recounts. The adoptive family was present. It was May 2023. When the social services officer asked Sergii if he wanted to return, he said no. Koldin asked to see her brother alone. The blow was devastating. “He told me he wouldn’t go back because the Nazis ruled Ukraine and there was a war, it was a dangerous country,” she relates. But she stayed with him; they talked for more than three hours. She told him she missed him, that they had to be together. Finally, she offered him a month with her as a sort of trial period, and if he decided he wanted to return to Russia, she would let him. The boy agreed.

More than two years later, the two siblings are living in Kyiv. He, at 14, lives with a Ukrainian family and is continuing his studies at high school. She is in her third year of a journalism degree. “Sergii doesn’t talk about Russia anymore,” says Koldin, “I think he’s happy because he’s always smiling.”

— And you?

— Me too.

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