A research team at Yale University has used satellite imagery and open-source investigation to locate Ukrainian children who were forcibly transferred to Russia since 2022. The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale identified 210 re‑education and military training camps across Russia where some of the children are being held, and estimates the total number of children transferred at about 36,000, HRL director Nathaniel Raymond told AFP. (AFP)
The HRL project began in 2022 at the request of the U.S. State Department, which asked the lab to assess how many children had been moved by Russian authorities and to map the scope of the phenomenon, Raymond explained while speaking at a seminar in the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. (AFP)
Raymond said the investigation initially looked almost impossible: how to find children hidden and protected by Russian security services using only internet sources and satellite imagery? The breakthrough came because of a mistake by some local Russian officials — they posted selfies with Ukrainian children, often taken inside buses, and in many cases forgot to disable their phone geotagging. (AFP)
By extracting the latitude and longitude from those photos and matching details visible in the images (including identifiable devices such as Apple Watches), the HRL team was able to pinpoint locations to search with satellite imagery. Those findings have been shared with Ukrainian authorities, Raymond said. (AFP)
Analyzing further publicly available material — including official photos released by Russian authorities earlier in the conflict — HRL identified 210 camps across Russia that it classifies as re‑training or military camps where some Ukrainian children are held. The lab’s current estimate for the total number of children transferred is roughly 36,000. (AFP)
According to Raymond, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023, Russian authorities curtailed public posting of such material and began relocating children: “They started to clean the crime scene, to move the children,” he said. (AFP; ICC arrest warrant, 2023)
Raymond concluded that the fate of these children must be treated as an absolute priority in ongoing negotiations. (AFP)
