VLADIMIR Putin is using "zombie" camps to brainwash Ukrainian kids in a chilling three-stage plan to replenish his Russian army, a top MP has revealed.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner, said the Russian tyrant is responsible for the "genocide" of Ukrainian children being forcibly deported across the border.
He described the Kremlin’s disturbing three-stage plan to rid the youngsters of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.
The plan involves placing children in sinister camps where they speak Russian and sing the national anthem before having their official documents altered and being placed in Russian families.
Often the children are told that their loved ones have abandoned them and that they are now part of the Russian Federation.
But Dmytro revealed that children who refuse to accept their Russian captor's demands are then being tortured in special rooms within the "re-education" camps.
The snatched youngsters are also forced to take part in the Kremlin’s youth military organisations and train with weapons - part of Putin’s scheme to create a new generation of fighters for his dwindling army, the MP warned.
Ukraine says the young hostages are forced to spend days in windowless torture chambers, without food and water, until they surrender and accept that they are now Russian citizens.
Traumatised Ukrainian kids who have been able to make it back home spoke of the horrific conditions while being held at the camps.
They say they were taken to isolation cells, beaten, and forced to watch as their captors burned the Ukraine flag in front of them and sang the patriotic song “Onward, Russia”.
In another harrowing account, Illia, 11, from war-torn Mariupol revealed how he saw his mother killed in a missile strike in which he was also injured by shrapnel.
When he was later kidnapped by Russian troops, the shrapnel was removed without anaesthetic and he was told to write in Russian and repeat, “Glory to Ukraine as part of Russia”.
The Sun previously reported that the "zombification" camps were being used to indoctrinate children as part of Putin’s propaganda machine nearly three years after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
An arrest warrant was issued in March 2023 by the International Criminal Court for Putin and his Child’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the abduction of Ukrainian children.
Dmytro told The Sun: "Sometimes after children return, they tell us about torture, even a special place for children who don’t want to use the Russian language.
"Russians even created special camps for these Ukrainian children…they told us it was a special room torture chamber for children.
"If you don’t want to sing the anthem, the Russians hold you in this room without light, without food, without water, for one day even more.
"Next day, they ask, 'Do you change your mind or not? Are you ready to sing the Russian anthem or not? If not, okay you can stay longer'."
Dmytro is part of the Bring Kids Back initiative - a strategic plan set up by Zelensky to bring back Ukraine’s missing children.
He says the first child to be forcibly deported from Ukraine was back in 2014 when Putin illegally annexed Crimea.
There have been over 19,000 reports of deported children with 555 feared dead and 1,429 left injured, according to the initiative
But Dmytro says the real numbers could be much higher.
He added: "The territory that’s now under occupation [was home to] 1.5 million children.
"All of them are now under threat of being deported by the Russians.
"When we use number 19,546 for the number of children deported or forcibly transferred by the Russian side.
"It means we have found information about these children without any support from the Russian side and without support from international or direct partners.
"Potentially no one knows how many Ukraine children have been deported by Russia - no one."
The Human Rights Commissioner says the Russian leader’s chilling three-stage plan involves firstly sending children to "re-education" camps so they can be brainwashed.
Here, they are told to speak and write in Russian, sing the national anthem and forget their Ukrainian families.
They will also be signed up to Russia’s military youth movements where they will be made to wear uniforms and train with guns and drones.
These sinister military camps, set up at Putin's command, are providing young children from occupied Ukraine with brutal military training.
Shocking pictures show young teens assembling Kalashnikov assault rifles and controlling drones at one such military camp, while others can be seen shooting at a firing range.
One child is seen being trained on how to clear a minefield, sparking fears that such intense military training would see these youngsters join the Russian army and be sent off to the frontline.
“...no one knows how many Ukraine children have been deported by Russia - no one.”
Dmytro Lubinets
So far, around 70,000 Russian soldiers have been slaughtered on the battlefield as the Kremlin looks to replenish its depleting numbers.
Dmytro said: "The main idea for Russians to deport Ukraine children is to change their identity.
"Second is to grow a new generation of the Russian army.
"And then in future to use these children to continue aggression against Ukraine or even more aggression against another European country.
"Children must spend a period in special camps. The children have to be in the camps for two weeks, sometimes it is two months."
One Ukrainian youngster, Vitaliy, held at a camp in Yevpatroia spoke of horrors he saw there after he begged to be released from an isolation cell after four days.
He says any child who dared speak "Glory to Ukraine" would be locked in the basement and others were beaten by their captors.
They told him to "forget" speaking Ukrainian as there would be "no such language" and that his parents no longer needed him.
The second stage involves changing the child’s Ukrainian documents and giving them a new identity that will see them lost forever.
Dmytro added: "If the child has Ukraine documents, for example a birth certificate or passport, the Russians take away these documents and give Russian documents to the child.
“We see that often the Russians change the information, change the names and date of birth, place of birth."
He explains that Russian officials will often change the Ukrainian spelling of a child’s name to the Russian spelling to make it more difficult to track that child down.
Finally, the snatched child is placed in Russian families where they continue to be brainwashed and eventually forget their Ukrainian heritage entirely.
Dmytro says there is a reason that so many Russian households are willing to accept Ukrainian children into their homes - a monthly bonus.
He said: "The reason Russian families adopt Ukrainian children is for money.
"For every Ukrainian child from the state budget of Russia, the families every month earn a special bonus.
"That’s why a lot of Russian families adopt Ukraine children. In Russian families, they continue to press the child to change their identity.
"At this stage of deportation, the child must go to Russian schools every day."
ILLIA, 11, was deported from Mariupol after a Russian missile strike killed his mother and left him with horror shrapnel wounds when he was nine.
His neighbours buried his mum's body in their back garden before he was snatched by Vlad's soldiers and taken for surgery at a camp in Donestk.
The shrapnel was removed without any anaesthetic and forced to write and speak Russian and repeat "Glory to Ukraine as part of Russia".
He says Russian forces tried to turn him into a "propaganda tool" but that he is not "one to be duped so easily."
Illia's grandmother had been searching for her grandson ever since losing contact with her daughter in March 2022.
It wasn't until they spotted the young boy in a video from Russia that she realised he was alone and that her daughter had been killed.
His grandmother never gave up hope and set about getting her injured grandson back home where he belonged.
Months later, Illia returned home to Ukraine and had further surgery to remove more fragments from his leg while 11 remain.
His grandmother Olena said: "He had a school, he had a home, he had a mother and he lost all of that - his entire childhood.
"He kept to himself, he was afraid of noise, he was afraid of sirens. He had no memory.
He now has dreams of becoming a doctor so that he can help fighters on the frontline as a combat medic.
He explains that for younger children being placed in native Russian families, the transition can be a lot quicker even with children who may be five, six or even 10 years old.
He said: "The child has no choice.
"The child cannot say whether they are happy or not. The child is under pressure in the system. This is the main problem.
"With teenagers, it’s hardest for Russia. This category is a little bit easier for me to return."
Dmytro said Putin was "100 per cent" involved in the cruel "zombie" camps.
He says it is not possible that Vlad would be unaware of any of the chilling deportation procedures currently taking place.
He added: "Even more, I think he confirmed this deportation plan, for changing of identity, for preparing all these ages for deportation.
"I think that he is the main person who is responsible for this procedure and officially, we have all the details to recognise it [Russia’s actions] as a war crime, as genocide.
"Genocide has five elements, one of them is forcibly transferring children from one ethnic group to another. We see exactly what Russia did this and continues to do.
"Russians did this war crime."
