Russian Occupation Update, June 9, 2025

Author: Karolina Hird

Data cut-off: 9:30 am EST, June 9

Reporting period: June 2-June 9

 
ISW's Russian Occupation Update tracks the activities that occur in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The occupation updates will examine Russian efforts to consolidate administrative control of annexed areas and forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems. This product line replaces the section of the Daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment covering activities in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
 
To read ISW’s assessment of how Russian activities in occupied areas of Ukraine are part of a coerced Russification and ethnic cleansing campaign, click here.  

Key Takeaways:

• 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.
• Russia is consolidating control over occupied Ukraine in the digital sphere.
• Schools in occupied Kherson Oblast are introducing new curricula for the upcoming school year to encourage high birth rates amongst Ukrainian youth and to propagate traditional Russian family values.
• Russian occupation courts continue to weaponize spurious or overblown “high treason” charges to prosecute residents of occupied Crimea for perceived anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian sentiment.
• The ongoing “Great Russian Word” festival in occupied Crimea highlights Russian efforts to use the Russian language as a tool of sociocultural occupation.

Kremlin-appointed Russian Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova tacitly acknowledged that Russia has illegally deported Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova claimed on June 4 that Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky gave her “the list” and that her office has “started working on it,” in reference to the list of hundreds of kidnapped Ukrainian children which Ukrainian officials handed over to Russian officials during negotiations in Istanbul on June 2.[1] Lvova-Belova claimed that efforts to reunify Ukrainian children with family members can only be carried out if a parent or close relative with “appropriate legal grounds” applies for custody of the child, as instructed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.[2] Lvova-Belova also noted that her office has “reunited” 101 children with their families in Ukraine and other countries—around 0.5 percent of the 19,546 children whom the Ukrainian government has confirmed Russia has deported.[3] The actual number of deportations is likely to be much higher, as ISW and others have frequently assessed.[4]

Russian officials have attempted to downplay the scale of Russia’s deportations of Ukrainian children, claiming that the list that the Ukrainian government provided in Istanbul showed “hundreds” as opposed to “thousands” of children.[5] An anonymous Ukrainian source noted to Euronews that Ukraine made the decision to only submit a list of 339 names in order to protect the children out of concerns that Russia may try to further hide them by changing their names or moving them within Russia.[6]  Lvova-Belova, however, tacitly admitted that Russia has indeed deported Ukrainian children by stating that she is “working” on returning the children named in the Ukrainian list—acknowledging that there is a population of Ukrainian children living within Russia who must be returned to Ukraine and have guardians in Ukraine, meaning there is no reason for them to be in Russia in the first place. Lvova-Belova’s statements also further confirm the illegality of Russia’s behavior vis-à-vis Ukrainian children. The suggestion that children can only be repatriated upon the appeal of a guardian “with an appropriate legal basis” forgoes the potentially thousands of orphans whom Russia deported from children’s institutions in occupied Ukraine who do not have relatives who know what has happened to them or who can advocate for them in the Russian legal system.[7] Lvova-Belova has herself adopted such a child—an orphan teenager from Mariupol.[8] Russia has also gone to great lengths to change the names and birthplaces of some of the children it has deported, which makes it nearly impossible for potential relatives to identify these children in the first place.[9] Lvova-Belova’s discussion of the list furthermore highlights the fact that Russia is failing to respect its international legal responsibilities as a belligerent occupying power—Russia should have made lists of the identities of each and every one of the Ukrainian children it deported for tracking and accountability purposes, and it clearly has not done so.[10]

Russia is consolidating control over occupied Ukraine in the digital sphere. Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo reported on June 2 that the occupied Kherson Oblast-based Tavria TV and Radio Company launched the new “Tavria” mobile application.[11] “Tavria” is the first such application associated with a media organization in occupied Ukraine and allows users to access live news, radio broadcasts, and curated content from Tavria TV.[12] ISW previously reported that Russian media expert Alexander Malkevich created Tavria TV and Radio in order to disseminate pro-Russian narratives in occupied Ukraine.[13] The launch of the “Tavria” app will allow Tavria TV and Radio an even greater information monopoly in occupied Kherson Oblast, ensuring that residents receive a constant stream of pro-Russian narratives disseminated in the form of news broadcasts and personalized media offerings.

Russian occupation officials are also restricting mobile phone connection and monitoring text messages and calls in order to deepen control over the digital sphere. Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Oleksiy Kharchenko warned on June 4 that mobile phone operators in occupied Luhansk Oblast are threatening to disconnect the phone numbers of individuals who fail “verification,” which entails presenting a Russian passport to occupation authorities to “verify” one’s personal data.[14] This suggests that Russian occupation authorities are using the threat of mobile disconnection to coerce passportization in occupied Luhansk Oblast. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko similarly noted on June 4 that mobile communications are not operating properly throughout occupied Ukraine due to poor Russian software, and also reported that Russian officials are monitoring correspondence and calls—suggesting that the monitoring may be impacting the overall quality of mobile communications.[15] Russia’s digital censorship in occupied Ukraine is multifaceted—it relies on the dissemination of Russian-controlled media and apps with the simultaneous physical blocking of means and methods of mobile communication.

Schools in occupied Kherson Oblast are introducing new curricula for the upcoming school year to encourage high birth rates amongst Ukrainian youth and to propagate traditional Russian family values. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration announced on June 5 that schools in occupied Kherson Oblast will begin introducing the “Family Patterns” project in school curricula starting on September 1, 2025.[16] “Family Patterns” will encourage discussions in the format of the “Conversations about important things” project in order to develop “respectful attitude towards family memory and values in schoolchildren.” The Kherson Oblast occupation administration also announced the start of the “Save Life” educational program in schools, which defines itself as “aimed at increasing the birth rate…. among young people.” School classes that extol traditional Russian family values and encourage youth to start large families are a form of Russification and additionally seek to increase birth rates in occupied Ukraine, as ISW has previously reported.[17] Russia requires population growth to support its occupation of Ukraine, as children who are born in occupied territories immediately receive Russian citizenship. This allows Russia to make real the fallacy that these territories are Russian because they are inhabited by Russian citizens.[18]

Russian occupation courts continue to weaponize spurious or overblown “high treason” charges to prosecute residents of occupied Crimea for perceived anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian sentiment. The Crimean occupation Supreme Court and Sevastopol occupation City Court issued three “high treason” sentences between June 5 and 6—one against a man and two against women. In all three cases, the Russian courts alleged that the respondents had provided financial or informational support to the Ukrainian armed forces. One case involves a woman who was living in Ireland following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and whom Russian security services detained when she returned to occupied Crimea in 2024 to attend her mother’s funeral on the allegation that she had bought a pro-Ukrainian digital postage stamp.[19] The woman will spend 17 years in prison on the charge of “high treason” for her purchase of the postage stamp.

The Russian State Duma approved a bill which expanded the definition of “high treason” in December 2024 to include affiliation with any organization deemed to be participating in “activities against the security of the Russian Federation.”[20] Russia began convicting record numbers of people both in Russia and in occupied Ukraine on treason charges following the full-scale invasion, and has leveraged treason charges in order to target and stifle perceived dissent in occupied Ukraine.[21] The fact that Russia also appears to be increasingly targeting women in occupied Ukraine with treason, extremism, and terrorism charges is also noteworthy and indicative of a growing trend, as ISW has previously reported.[22]

The ongoing “Great Russian Word” festival in occupied Crimea highlights Russian efforts to use the Russian language as a tool of sociocultural occupation. The eighteenth annual “Great Russian Word” festival opened in occupied Crimea on June 3 and will run until June 12.[23] The festival brands itself as “aimed at supporting Russian culture” and “strengthening the position on the Russian language” for the purpose of defending “[Russian] state interests.”[24] One of the self-described goals of the 2025 iteration of the festival is on “preserving the purity of the Russian language”—the festival is disseminating a brochure that describes how “Anglicisms” (English words or phrases) risk destroying Russian culture and language.[25] An anonymous Crimean human rights activist noted that the festival is advocating for notably anti-Western ideologies, intended to propagate the narrative of the supremacy of the Russian language while further separating occupied Crimea from Ukraine and the West.[26] Russia has used the Russian language as a cudgel against Ukrainian identity and pro-Western sentiment in occupied Ukraine since its first invasion in 2014, and has severely limited access to Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar language education in its over decade-long occupation of the peninsula as a means of consolidating its sociocultural influence.[27] Russian officials have also cracked down on English-language education in Crimea, claiming that English-speakers have been at “war” with Russia for “thousands of years.”[28] Occupation officials from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts notably attended the festival in order to learn lessons on Russian language education and institute these lessons in their respective educational systems.[29]

[1] https://t.me/malvovabelova/5383

[2] https://t.me/malvovabelova/5383

[3] https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/

[4] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-still-stealing-ukrainian-children; https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/fact-sheet-russias-kidnapping-and-re-education-of-ukraines-children/

[5] https://regnum dot ru/article/3968817; https://www.mk dot ru/politics/2025/06/04/lvovabelova-rossiya-ne-pokhishhala-detey-s-ukrainy.html; https://rg dot ru/2025/06/04/zaharova-publikaciia-spiska-ukrainskih-detej-stala-shokom-dlia-sozdatelej-fejkov.html; https://tsargrad dot tv/news/lvova-belova-rossija-vedjot-rabotu-po-kazhdomu-rebjonku-iz-peredannogo-ukrainoj-spiska_1277680; https://t.me/tass_agency/318730

[6] https://www.euronews.com/2025/06/04/ukraine-demands-return-of-children-taken-by-russia-how-did-kyiv-come-up-with-the-list

[7] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-still-stealing-ukrainian-children; https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/05/detained-deported-and-brainwashed-how-moscow-russifies-ukrainian-children

[8] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/19/maria-lvova-belova-adopted-mariupol-boy-philip-golovnya/#:~:text=On%20the%20eve%20of%20the,a%20campaign%20of%20%E2%80%9CRussification%E2%80%9D.

[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67488646

[10] https://files-profile.medicine.yale.edu/documents/8c54abb4-3c6d-4b5c-be05-727f612afccc

[11] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/7661

[12] https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1439693613691087&set=pcb.1406243510652672; https://dzen dot ru/video/watch/683d8dcd35f8e61aad6e06c6?utm_referrer=www.google.com; https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/7661

[13] https://isw.pub/OccupationUpdate051225; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/27/tavriya-tv-will-promote-happiness-love-russia-opens-station-occupied-kherson

[14] https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/27245

[15] https://t.me/andriyshTime/38280

[16] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/31214

[17] https://isw.pub/OccupationUpdate050125;

[18] https://isw.pub/OccupationUpdate051525; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-occupation-update-april-14-2025

[19] https://crimeahrg dot org/uk/verhovnij-sud-krimu-zasudiv-do-17-rokiv-koloni%d1%97-35-richnu-meshkanku-yalti-za-dezhzradu/ 

[20] https://apnews.com/article/russia-parliament-crackdown-treason-4b83004965cc6ae81f4ca25a603da4d0

[21] https://www.currenttime dot tv/a/novaya-narodnaya-statya-v-rossii-rasshiryayut-ponyatie-gosizmena/33236568.html

[22] https://isw.pub/OccupationUpdate051225

[23] https://suspilne dot media/crimea/1034751-na-festivali-velike-rosijske-slovo-v-okupovanomu-krimu-lobiuut-vidmovu-vid-latinici-pravozahisnik/

[24] https://tass dot ru/kultura/24136471

[25] https://tass dot ru/kultura/24136471

[26] https://suspilne dot media/crimea/1034751-na-festivali-velike-rosijske-slovo-v-okupovanomu-krimu-lobiuut-vidmovu-vid-latinici-pravozahisnik/

[27] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/24-210-01%20ISW%20Occupation%20playbook.pdf; https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/06/20/education-under-occupation/forced-russification-school-system-occupied-ukrainian

[28] https://www.pravda.com dot ua/eng/news/2022/05/25/7348508/

[29] https://crimea.ria dot ru/20250608/v-yalte-proshel-ezhegodnyy-festival-velikoe-russkoe-slovo-1147041337.html