NEW: Russia is training Ukrainian children to become drone operators for future service in the Russian military or employment in the Russian defense industrial base. Read more in the July 3 Russian Occupation Update from @karolinahird.bsky.social: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

1/ Russia is effectively banning Ukrainian-language education in schools in occupied Ukraine starting September 1. Here's a quick🧵 on how Russia uses constraints on Ukrainian language access as a tool of coercive control in occupied Ukraine.

“When Russia says they’re ‘deporting’ someone, they’re not deporting them back to Ukraine.” My story on how Putin’s latest attempt to force Russian passports on Ukrainians paves the way for more war crimes in the occupied territories. meduza.io/en/feature/2... @meduza.io

Occupation authorities plan to build and repair over 600 miles of roads in Crimea — a project experts and Ukrainian officials say is meant to bolster military logistics and facilitate the illegal extraction of resources from occupied territory. meduza.io/en/feature/2...

NEW: Kremlin-appointed Russian Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova tacitly acknowledged that Russia has illegally deported Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova’s statements further confirm the illegality of Russia’s behavior vis-à-vis Ukrainian children. isw.pub/OccupationUpdate060925

Lots of infrastructure developments in today’s Occupation Update. Russian infrastructure projects in TOT serve as powerful indicators of Russia’s plans to physically integrate Ukrainian assets into Russia, generating economic benefits for the Russian state + complicating reintegration efforts.

Russian armed forces have committed crimes against humanity by deliberately targeting civilians with drones in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, according to a new report by the United Nation's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.

“There’s a very clear and concerted effort to deport Ukrainian children and adopt them into Russian families and erase their Ukrainian identities." ISW's @karolinahird.bsky.social speaks with @thetimes.com about Russian efforts to destroy Ukrainian identity: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mIZ...

NEW: An international coalition comprised of Ukraine and its partners agreed to establish a special tribunal to investigate and prosecute the Russian crimes of aggression against Ukraine. (🧵1/3) Read more in the latest Russian Occupation Update: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

Awesome to see @www.csce.gov calling out Russia's widescale deportation of Ukrainian children. We over at @thestudyofwar.bsky.social have been doing our best to keep this in the public eye, so please check out more of our work on the ISW website: www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has identified over 19,500 children who have been forcibly deported to Russia, Belarus, or occupied territories, where they are subjected to intense propaganda designed to erase their Ukrainian identity.

NEW: A source at State shared with me a memo from the DoD Joint Staff dated 4/15 confirming that the combatant commands support the Women, Peace, and Security program and collectively recommended to continue its implementation, contrary to Sec Hegseth claim that "troops HATE it"

NEW: Russia is once again preparing to escalate the forced removal and deportation of Ukrainian children during the upcoming summer months. (1/3) Russian Occupation Update, April 28, 2025: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

This absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, become normalized. This is the reality of Russia's occupation of Ukraine- don't ever look away.

3/ Russia is actively recruiting teachers from throughout the Russian Federation to teach in occupied Luhansk Oblast as part of the “Zemskyi Uchitel” (“Rural Teacher”) program. Read more from @karolinahird.bsky.social: isw.pub/OccupationUp...

Please, Do Not Betray My Crimea | "Crimea is not just a lump of land, it is the home to many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. In exile or under occupation, it is a part of our soul." Elina Beketova

Just a friendly reminder that 1) Crimea is Ukraine, and 2) the millions of people living under Russian rule in Crimea will basically be condemned to suffer indefinitely if Russia gets a carte blanche on its occupation from the US administration.

Dear Steve Witkoff: An elementary lesson on Ukrainian demographics. The fact that someone, or the majority of people in a region, speaks the Russian language natively doesn’t mean they want to be part of Russia. It doesn’t mean they are not bombed by Russia.

NEW | The Rapid Support Forces has committed war crimes as it has intensified efforts to consolidate control over western Sudan. RSF atrocities include attacks on the Zamzam refugee camp and are possibly constituent acts of ethnic cleansing or genocide. www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/afr...

1/ Today's occupation update focuses heavily on Russia's efforts to deport Ukrainian children and teens to Russia and expose them to Russification programs. I discuss how programs such as "University Shifts" and "Cultural Map 4+85" are just a small part of a much larger ecosystem ⬇️

⚡️US shuts down office combating Russian disinformation, Rubio says. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on April 16 the closure of the State Department’s office responsible for countering foreign disinformation, citing concerns about free speech and the rights of American citizens.

NEW | External meddling in Sudan shows no signs of stopping amid the country’s now two-year civil war. US partners such as the UAE, as well as US adversaries such as Iran and Russia, threaten US interests in the Red Sea by fueling the war. (1/6)

"the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man mistakenly sent to a gulag... and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps. This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped" snyder.substack.com/p/state-terror

NEW: Russian Occupation Update, April 8, 2025 The Kremlin is using the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to consolidate social control over occupied areas of Ukraine and destroy any semblance of religious freedom. isw.pub/RussianOccup... MORE 🔽🧵(1/3)

MORE: The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has been steadily declining since November 2024, in part due to successful Ukrainian counterattacks in eastern Ukraine. (🧵1/7) Full report: isw.pub/UkrWar040625

🚨 NEW: The number of Russian drone strikes targeting Ukraine has surged by more than 50 per cent since US-led peace talks began in mid-February w/ @harrietbarber.bsky.social telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2... 1/10

An interesting (and insane) tidbit from today's @thestudyofwar.bsky.social occupation update: Russian veterans in occupied Simferopol, Crimea, are teaching children as young as seven military and combat skills in accordance with Spetsnaz, NKVD, KGB, and SMERSH training doctrine....

Launching a new mini-product for @thestudyofwar.bsky.social tracking updates in Russian-occupied Ukraine. I fear we're increasingly losing sight (especially here in the US) of the stakes of this war for the millions of Ukrainian civilians living behind the frontline.

Just announced! Join @razomforukraine.org and @atlanticcouncil.bsky.social for a virtual discussion on Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children and why the United States must work to return them. RSVP now 👉 www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/whats-...

Extremely concerning and unacceptable. Yale HRL has been tracking the locations of 35 THOUSAND deported Ukrainian children in Russia, amongst providing other critical human rights monitoring functions.

My latest for @thestudyofwar.bsky.social is out today, examining Russia's continued efforts to deport Ukrainian children. Especially salient given this new UN OHCHR report detailing the impacts of over 3 years of war and occupation on the lives of Ukrainian children. www.ohchr.org/sites/defaul...

The Kremlin has been propagating these talking points for more than a decade.

"Why would they want to absorb Ukraine," man asks as Russia marks 3 years since launching a war to annex portions of Ukraine

The State Department has ended funding for the tracking of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and U.S. officials or contractors might have deleted a database with information on them, according to a letter that lawmakers plan to send to Secretary of State Rubio.

Ukraine’s other allies will continue to share intelligence, most importantly the British. But the effect of US cutting off this assistance will be acutely felt. Tying Ukraine’s hands, blinding their forces, pick your metaphor. Hard to see how the US could still be called Ukraine’s ally now.

Read this by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk: “Russia does not care whether there is war or peace — it seeks the destruction of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It will gleefully pocket every concession from the Trump administration and then continue fighting.” on.ft.com/4bn2uSs

I am not a Zelensky voter, but I literally teared up after watching the way Trump and Vance humiliated him in the Oval just now. What a dark, humiliating moment in our history. At a loss for words, tbh

Ok. Once and for all. Trump is anti Ukraine, anti Democracy, anti Europe and, above all, pro Putin. There can be no more doubt—it’s just a disaster it’s taken so long for people to understand it.

putin doesn’t need to engage directly with zelensky—the americans are doing the lifting for him. surely the kremlin is surprised with how directly the president trump is willing to confront zelensky.

Utterly shameful behavior from Trump + Vance. Belittling and humiliating an ALLY who has done everything to fight for the literal survival of his people (and the free world). Russia's daily atrocities against the Ukrainian people clearly mean nothing to this admin- and that's a bad precedent to set.

Don't cover Ukraine, but this is awful & embarrassing. This is the patronizing approach that people have criticized the US for using with African allies for years. We are bad partners to treat our allies, who are fighting for their existence, in this way.

Debates over Ukraine’s occupied territories risk forgetting those who paid the highest price.

NEW: Russia's outreach to US adversaries continues despite Putin's efforts at rapprochement with the Trump administration. (🧵1/7) Putin spoke w/Xi Jinping on Feb 24, the 3rd anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian officials also met w/Iranian + North Korean officials on Feb 25.

I can’t believe I’m finally saying this, but our narrative show — ESCALATION — is finally out everywhere! @tylermcbrien.bsky.social and I walk you through the history of US-UA relations from the 1990s to the present day. podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/e...

NEW: Russia Has Failed to Break Ukraine: isw.pub/RussiaRetros... Russia dedicated staggering amounts of manpower and equipment to several major offensive efforts in Ukraine in 2024, intending to degrade Ukrainian defenses and seize the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. (1/3)

This Thursday @alexakoenig.bsky.social joins us talking about covering gender based violence sensitively with open sources. Join live at 11am EST/5pm CET to discuss the issue of obtaining consent and other ethical dilemmas you might be faced with when reporting remotely. discord.gg/Hb5zjnEe?eve...

Zelensky was elected with a majority of Ukrainian votes. His presidency was extended per the Constitution during the war. It’s odd to hear him called a dictator by someone who led a failed coup and is now expanding the executive branch in violation of American norms and processes

Yale Humanitarian Research Lab published a landmark investigation into Russia's systemic abduction of Ukrainian children. It was in partnership with the State Department. The link to this report is now dead—has the DOGE purge destroyed it? hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/apps/...

Iranian Brigadier General Behrouz Esbati’s leaked December 2024 speech provides a rare look into how Iran is coping with its strategic defeat in Syria and how it will revise its regional strategy and security doctrine moving forward. Here’s what you need to know 🧵

3/ Roughly a division's worth of Ukrainian troops have undermined the Russian military's ability to launch or renew offensive operations in lower-priority areas of the frontline and to reinforce priority efforts with elite airborne (VDV) and naval infantry units.