Thousands of children abducted from their homes in Ukraine and forcibly taken to Russia during the conflict have ended up at military training camps linked to two of the country’s leading oil companies, Gazprom and Rosneft.
The International Criminal Court has accused Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes over the “unlawful deportation” of Ukraine’s stolen children.
Now, the scale of the Russian mechanism behind the child abductions has been laid bare, with the country’s leading oil companies found to be facilitating the transportation and re-education of more than 2,000 children between 2022-2025.
The UK has sanctioned both firms as part of efforts to choke off revenues that go into funding Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Researchers at Yale University, which has investigated the forcible removals alongside The i Paper, analysed open source evidence to link state-owned Gazprom and state-controlled Rosneft to filtration camps in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea since 2008.
In these camps, the abducted Ukrainian children are indoctrinated into a pro-Russian mindset, with some turning their backs on their families. These camps often serve as accommodation, and some provide the children with military training.
In their report, the researchers at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab said that one Gazprom subsidiary, Gazprom Transgaz Ekaterinburg, posted images and videos of children being given army training in August 2022.
“At the event, children reportedly performed military drills, hand-to-hand combat, grenade throwing, and rifle shooting,” the report stated.
At least 2,158 children from Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia were taken to at least six camps that were owned by Gazprom subsidiaries, sponsored by Gazprom and Rosneft subsidiaries or their trade union organizations since 2022, the researchers found.
“This study can conclude that Gazprom and Rosneft, under the leadership of executives financially and politically tied to Putin, willingly aids the Kremlin’s agenda to engage in widescale Russification of Ukraine’s children,” they found.
Children rescued and brought back to Ukraine have been found to carry physical and mental signs of trauma, with specialist therapy required to help them recover. Some have recounted alarming experiences, including being stripped naked by their captors and physically searched.
“This study is the first public demonstration that these companies’ have integral involvement in Russia’s systematic campaign of child deportation and indoctrination,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director at the Lab.
The revelation comes after US sanctions on Russian fuel were temporarily lifted by US President Donald Trump to try to ease the energy supply crunch sparked by the US-Israel war with Iran. But the effect has been that Gazprom and Rosneft are the first known Russian Federation-affiliated companies linked to Putin’s alleged war crimes that are now profiting from another conflict.
A Russian camp where Ukrainian children were taken. This photo, shared by Yale researchers, shows an event held August 2022. (Photo: via Yale HRL)Among the evidence unearthed by the team included a statement in 2022 from the Chairman of the Oil, Gas, Construction Trade Union of Russia, Alexander Kochagin, stating that his organization collaborated with Gazprom subsidiary “Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg Trade Union” to “provide recreation” for 1,200 children from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic to be sent to camps in Russia’s southern region.
The authors say they found Gazprom and Rosneft to be “willing accomplices” in activities that have resulted in International Criminal Court-issued arrest warrants, but stopped short of forming an assessment of whether Gazprom and Rosneft’s involvement would see them face any legal recompense.
The researchers also found 80 per cent of the bodies they identified as involved in the transfer and indoctrination of Ukraine’s children to Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea have not been sanctioned by the US or Europe.
Yale has been investigating Russia’s abduction, indoctrination and military training of Ukraine’s children in at least 210 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied Ukraine since 2023. Their evidence is shared with international law enforcement and the Ukraine government for use in efforts to rescue the children and bring them home.
In October, 2024, seven Ukrainian children were returned home as part of the President of Ukraine?s initiative, Bring Kids Back UA. The children, ranging in age from 3 to 17, and their families spent a long time in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. (Photo: Ombudsman?s Office of Ukraine)The i Paper broke the news in March 2025 that the team had their funding cut under Trump’s administration. This decision was later reversed, in a rare U-turn from the President. The team are now funded independently.
There have been more than 20,000 reports of “unlawful deportation and forced transfer of children” and around 2,058 children have so far been repatriated, according to Bring Kids Back UA, an initiative launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to rescue children from deportation and occupation.
Gazprom and Rosneft did not respond to requests to comment, while the Kremlin strongly denies wrongdoing, claiming the adoptions by Russians are to help “abandoned” children.
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