October 9, 2025

Information Cutoff: October 9, 9:00 am ET

Karolina Hird

Russian federal ministries continue to facilitate the temporary deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia for cultural re-education programs. The Russian Ministry of Culture announced on October 6 that nearly 600 children from occupied Ukraine visited St. Petersburg through the “Cultural Map 4 + 85” program. The children visited various cultural and historical landmarks in St. Petersburg during the trip, including a Soviet military memorial. Cultural Map 4+85 will bring children from occupied Ukraine to Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, and Kazan in the coming weeks. The Russian Ministry of Culture launched Cultural Map 4+85 in August 2023 for the “socio-cultural rehabilitation and integration of children into a single Russian society” and has significantly expanded the reach of the program since then. The Russian Ministry of Culture conducted 14 tours for children in 2024, compared to 142 so far in 2025. ISW has previously reported on how Russia uses Cultural Map 4+85 to deport Ukrainian children to Russia for the purposes of their indoctrination by exposing them to Russian cultural and historical narratives. ISW continues to assess that while these programs bring children to Russia for defined and temporary periods of time, they still constitute illegal deportation because the purpose of these programs is the Russification of Ukrainian children.

The Russian “Eaglets of Russia” military-patriotic program is spreading to elementary schools in occupied Ukraine. Eaglets of Russia announced on October 9 that first- and second-graders (six- to ten-year-olds) from School No.1 in occupied Henichesk, Kherson Oblast, participated in an initiation ceremony and officially joined the Eaglets program. The Russian Ministry of Education started the Eaglets of Russia program in 2021, and it has since spread to occupied Ukraine, aiming to instill in children “an active civil stance” and “patriotic values.” While Eaglets of Russia presents itself as a civic engagement program, many of its activities appear overtly militaristic — children must swear an oath of allegiance to the program and participate in various patriotic education exercises. Eaglets of Russia appears to be intended to prepare very young school children to eventually enter cadet-style programs like Yunarmia and the youth military-patriotic organization Movement of the First, which are catered to teenagers. The Ukrainian Resistance Center warned on October 6 that Russian occupation officials are pressuring parents to enroll their students in the Eaglets program, despite the fact that participation is supposed to be voluntary.

• Russian federal ministries continue to facilitate the temporary deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia for cultural re-education programs such as “Cultural Map 4 + 85.”

• The Russian “Eaglets of Russia” military-patriotic program is spreading to elementary schools in occupied Ukraine.

• Russian occupation administrators are escalating their campaign to use subscriber identification module (SIM) cards to drive coerced passportization in occupied Ukraine ahead of the November 1 SIM card re-registration deadline.

• Russia has begun the next phase of its campaign to curate a loyal cadre of veterans to serve in occupation administrations throughout occupied Ukraine.

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