Author: Karolina Hird



Data cut-off: 12:30 pm ET, July 9

ISW's Russian Occupation Update tracks the activities that occur in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. 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.

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Russia is issuing Russian passports to Ukrainian children at the Artek International Children’s Center in occupied Crimea. Artek posted on its Telegram channel on July 9, announcing that 17 children from unspecified regions of Russia (potentially including Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine) received Russian passports at a special ceremony at Artek during which they swore to be faithful to Russia. Artek first began facilitating passport ceremonies for children who recently turned 14 years old in 2023 as part of the “We Are Citizens of Russia” project, which is implemented by the Russian youth activist organization Movement of the First. Russia's domestic law requires all residents of Russia to obtain an internal Russian passport at the age of 14, and has begun applying this law in occupied Ukraine. Russian media have since reported stories of children from occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts receiving Russian passports at Artek since 2023. The Ukrainian government sanctioned Artek in June 2025 for its role in the forced relocation, deportation, and indoctrination of Ukrainian children. The Ukrainian Resistance Center recently reported that Russia plans to send 56,000 children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Artek in Summer 2026—highlighting the key role Artek plays in the wider forced removal and indoctrination ecosystem. The fact that Artek is facilitating the passportization of Ukrainian children is noteworthy, as the receipt of Russian passports amounts to the effective bureaucratic elimination of Ukrainian identity. Russia is trying to turn a generation of Ukrainian children into the next generation of loyal Russians, and passportization efforts support this wider campaign.

Key Takeaways:

• Russia is issuing Russian passports to Ukrainian children at the Artek International Children’s Center in occupied Crimea.



• Russia continues to pursue the industrial integration of occupied Ukraine. The increased integration of industries in occupied Ukraine with Russian markets will allow Russian to continue to generate a profit off of the occupation.

• Russia continues efforts to appropriate abandoned or ownerless property in occupied Ukraine to sell real estate at premium rates to Russians and Russian regime loyalists.

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