The Kremlin’s Corporate Soldiers

The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL) has issued a new report continuing to document unlawful deportation, re-education and militarisation, and adoption of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation.

This time, the investigation details the role of two Russian energy giants—Gazprom and Rosneft, including their subsidiaries and trade unions—in facilitating the transportation and re-education of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine in 2022–25. In total, the HRL verified that approximately 2,158 Ukrainian minors received sponsored vouchers to attend at least six camps in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea. No evidence regarding whether parental consent was sought and obtained is available, but previous reporting validates the practice where children have been sent to camps without such.

State Capitalism in Wartime

Russia’s oil and gas industry revenues have consistently been the largest contributors to the federal budget and critical to its ability to sustain the war(s) of aggression and geopolitical ambitions. In turn, Russia’s largest corporations—Gazprom and Rosneft—are more than just energy companies, with the Russian state holding a controlling stake in each. These two business empires, as well as their two loyalist CEOs, have strong political and financial ties to the Kremlin and are the backbone of the Russian mafia state. The two oligarchs who respectively control Gazprom and Rosneft, Alexei Miller and Igor Sechin, are believed to be Vladimir Putin’s closest, most trusted allies and confidants. For those very reasons, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the duo was placed under individual sanctions by the US and Europe.

What the new HRL study adds, however, is that Gazprom and Rosneft’s contribution to the crime of aggression against Ukraine extends beyond generating petrodollars to the Kremlin, to the manufacture of weapons and the recruitment of fighters. They are willing accomplices and key enablers of Moscow’s genocidal agenda of Russification of Ukraine’s children.

Such a conclusion is in line with earlier findings, including the most recent ones by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, that suggest a state-wide, systemic campaign of forced deportations and indoctrination. The latest HRL report adds to the general body of evidence on the scale, the depth, and levels of involvement of state-affiliated companies and individuals. It further proves that without all hands on deck and wilful participation, this crime would not have been executable, and that includes, for example, the private hands of child psychologists and other personnel present on site. Meanwhile, part of the camp curriculum, described as ‘special programme’ with ‘patriotic education initiatives’, for instance, reportedly included military drills, hand-to-hand combat, grenade throwing, and rifle shooting. It bears repeating—and the previous reports underscore it as well—that non-military or security services such as the Ministry of Education play a major role in the deportation, reeducation, and adoption of Ukraine’s children.

Closing Eyes and Opening Loopholes

This news could not have arrived at a more pivotal moment. To curb energy prices and temper market shocks from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Trump administration, earlier in March, decided to temporarily allow Russian oil and petroleum products back in. The report claims that as a result of that decision, “Gazprom and Rosneft are the first known Russian Federation-affiliated corporate entities directly implicated in Russia’s alleged war crimes related to child deportation that are currently making money from U.S. consumer spending.”

This is, however, not the first time the Yale HRL has investigated and corroborated state entities’ involvement in Russia’s crimes against children in Ukraine. Previously, Belaruskali, a state-owned potash company in Belarus, was found to have contributed to Russia’s deportations and militarisation of Ukrainian children. The US government has recently lifted sanctions on Belaruskali.

An Accountability Deficit

First of all, this new data should complement the existing body of evidence for the future tribunal—which Estonia has formally joined—against Russia for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, as well as other war crimes and crimes against humanity.

That international trial, let alone its verdict, is a distant prospect. In the meantime, stricter sanctions and enforced accountability are needed. “At least 80% of Russian Federation-affiliated entities involved in the activities” are not even under sanctions by either the United States or European countries, the report states. This should be corrected.

Next, legal and financial stakes must be raised, via sanctions and other repercussions, for private entities in the west that are prone to overlooking the inconvenient truth of doing business in or with Russia. In particular, this applies to dealing with counterparts such as Rosneft and Gazprom, now implicated—with a high degree of confidence—in aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.

The problem extends beyond energy trade. It should also be made clear that continued business activities in Russia, especially post 2022, will always come with strings attached. For instance, a report by the American hedge fund Grizzly Research accused hotels belonging to the French Accor Group of harbouring deported Ukrainian children for adoption in Russia. (The company denied any involvement and launched an internal investigation.) Irrespective of the outcomes of that probe, this underscores the need to expand sanctions and toughen accountability measures to discourage and prevent such cases from occurring in the first place.

And finally, rigorous investigations such as those by Yale HRL should continue with proper resources and support. After having withdrawn government funding in 2025, the US State Department has just launched a new assistance programme, worth $25 million, to aid the return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia. European partners should follow suit.

Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).