Deportations of Ukrainian children: the secret trail of Russian monasteries

Ukrainian children "refugees" in Russia. Photo DR

For three years, les humanités have been documenting the crime of deporting tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Despite ICC arrest warrants and UN resolutions, one question remains: where are they? After months of discreet investigation, a major revelation has finally emerged. A significant number of these children are reportedly being held captive in monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church, particularly in the Tver region, where indoctrination, exploitation, and criminal practices are rampant under the shadow of clergy close to the Kremlin.

But where are they? Ever since I first revealed and began documenting the crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia (summary HERE), I've been asking myself: where are they? The figure of 20,000 deported children is mentioned, but there are undoubtedly many more. Despite the zeal of Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for "children's rights" (sic), and her husband and patron, the fascist billionaire Konstantin Malofeev (who notably funded the National Front in France), a small number of them (a thousand, probably far fewer) have been "adopted" by Russian families. Before Trump cut off their funding, researchers from Yale University were able to geolocate approximately 75 internment centers throughout Russia and Belarus. I have attested that certain very young children are almost certainly the subjects of "medical experiments" in military facilities in Crimea, much like the "good" Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz-Birkenau: birds of a feather flock together. It is also proven that Ukrainian children, particularly teenagers, have passed through "recreational camps," including in Chechnya, where they were subjected to psychological ("brainwashing") and military indoctrination.

All of this is already known. Those familiar with the humanities also know that a close associate of Maria Lova-Belova, Irina Rudnitskaya, presented by Russian authorities as an "example of patriotic virtue," was recently arrested by those same authorities for "child trafficking." According to my information, this involved child pornography trafficking, including the youngest children (aged 3 to 6) among the 12 Ukrainian children she "adopted" (read HERE ); a mother hen who was, above all, a pimp...

Thanks to the intervention of Melania Trump (Vladimir Putin, it is said, is not immune to her charms), the Russian Federation has just "returned" seven children to their Ukrainian families. It's better than nothing, but 7 out of 20,000 is hardly enough.

The humanities investigation, conducted since September 2022 and meticulously sourced and documented, played a significant role: since March 2023, Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova have been subject to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court. Even if a peace agreement were to be reached (which is unlikely) between Ukraine and Russia, these arrest warrants would remain in force, as the ICC Deputy Prosecutors, Mam Mandaye Niang (Senegal) and Najat Shameen Khan (Fiji), emphasized on December 5. On December 3, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/ES-11/L.16/Rev.1 (proposed by Ukraine, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, and Canada) by a vote of 91 to 12, with 57 abstentions. The resolution demands that the Russian Federation ensure the immediate, safe, and unconditional repatriation of all Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred or deported. It also urges Moscow to immediately cease practices of family separation and to "change the personal status of children" through citizenship, adoption, foster care, or indoctrination. The 12 countries that voted against the resolution were: Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, Syria, Eritrea, Mali, Zimbabwe, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Cuba, and, unsurprisingly, North Korea.

According to the Regional Center for Human Rights (Kyiv), which testified before a US Congressional committee, a 12-year-old boy from the occupied Donetsk region and a 16-year-old girl from Simferopol were sent to the Songdowon camp on North Korea's east coast, approximately 9,000 km from Ukraine. Ukrainian and international organizations interpret these transfers as an extension of the broader system of deporting and re-educating thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus, and now, in a few documented cases, North Korea (read HERE ).

These "few cases," while gradually piecing together the puzzle, don't yet provide a complete picture. And the question continues to haunt and gnaw: where are these 20,000 (at least) deported children? What kind of "logistics" is in place to manage such a number? Orphanages and other "sanatoriums"? Fine, but that's not enough. For eight months (at least), I've been conducting this investigation secretly, with little to show for it: it's like looking for a needle in a haystack—a haystack, it should be noted, to which neither UNICEF nor the International Red Cross has access (refused by Putin). But tonight, the investigation has just taken a giant leap forward.

Most of these children are being held captive, in utmost secrecy, in... Russian Orthodox monasteries! I will continue these exclusive revelations in the coming days. For now, I will focus on the Tver Oblast, in the central/northwestern part of European Russia, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, on the vast East European Plain. The region is known for its forests, numerous lakes (for example, Lake Seliger), and part of the Valdai Hills . Several major European rivers, including the Volga, originate within its territory. At the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers, about 180 km northwest of Moscow, the city of Tver concentrates most of the region's administrative, cultural, and transportation infrastructure. There are several important Orthodox monasteries and convents in the Tver Oblast, some directly in Tver and others in smaller towns throughout the region. I was able to identify three of them, where Ukrainian children are currently being held:

• The Convent of Saint Catherine ( Svato-Ekaterininskiy), located 19/2 Kropotkina Street , in Tver, is a women's convent (pictured below) with a church and monastic buildings in the central urban fabric. The current monastery was founded in 1996 around an older St. Catherine's Church, built in the late 18th century, closed during the Soviet era, then reopened for worship in the late 1980s before being incorporated into the new convent. Around fifty children are reportedly being held there.

  
  

  

• The Great Monastery of Boris and Gleb (Борисоглебский монастырь), located at 7 Staritskaya Street in Torzhok, is listed on mapping websites as "Monastery of Holy Martyrs and Passion-bearers Boris and Gleb" or "Novotorzhsky Borisoglebsky Monastery." This historic monastic complex overlooks the Tvertsa River in the center of Torzhok (see photo below). It is one of the oldest monasteries in Russia, founded in the 11th century and now designated as a cultural heritage site of federal importance. The complex includes several churches and buildings. It is believed that approximately one hundred children are detained there.

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• The most important is the Bogoroditse-Rozhdestvenskiy Monastery ( Тверской Христорождественский женский монастырь) , located at 1-y Proletarskiy poselok, in Tver. It is the oldest monastery in Russia, dating back to the 12th century. Founded by Grand Duke Vsevolod III of Vladimir, it was the burial place of General and Saint Alexander Nevsky. During the Soviet era, it was used as an office for Soviet intelligence agencies, but it has since been restored and now houses monks. The land of Tver has given birth to more than 150 saints and patrons, who "represent the glory and honor of all Orthodox Russia." Among them: Mikhail Yaroslavich, Prince of Tver, one of the first to prepare for the unification of the Russian lands.

An annex of this vast building, which was undergoing renovation, was reportedly housing 150 to 200 Ukrainian children, subjected to indoctrination or worse. Just recently, on December 7th, some of them attended a "lesson" at the Cathedral of the Ascension in Tver, as part of the "Zernyshki dobra" ("Seeds of Kindness") Sunday school. After "studying" the work of the Russian classic Alexander Kuprin, "The Marvelous Doctor," which "deals with the most important Christian commandment, mercy," these Ukrainian children were forced to participate in the creative activity "New Year's Greetings to the Defender of the Fatherland." In short, they had to write greeting letters and create drawings for Russian soldiers fighting against their own country (photo below).

Also in Tver, these days, other children have been forced to attend the 8th International Orthodox Film Festival "Russian Heart" ("Русское сердце", photo below).

A festival that "traditionally emphasizes not the entertaining function, but the educational function of cinema: the films selected for the program raise questions of morality and spiritual strength, of love for humankind, and reveal true Orthodox spiritual values." Consider, for example, the titles of some of the films screened (and awarded): Captain Fourth Rank ("Капитан четвертого ранга"), directed by Ilya Kazankov (Илья Казанков)), winner of the Audience Award; or Our Own. Ballad on the war ("СВОИ. Баллада о войне"), by "director" Artem Artemov (Артема Артемова), officer fighting in the Donbass since 2022 (photo below).

His film, released on the Okko platform and in select theaters in Russia and the occupied territories, depicts a group of Russian drone operators on the front lines, with characters inspired by real combatants, presented as sacrificial heroes . It is widely promoted by state and pro-Kremlin media as the "first realistic film about the SVO," with a self-proclaimed narrative of "truth from the front" that is in reality part of Russian war propaganda justifying the aggression and completely erasing the violence inflicted on Ukrainians. The film was reportedly financed by Konstantin Malofeev, the husband of Maria Lvova-Belova.

There is something even worse, but I must write in the conditional tense. Ukrainian children detained in Tver by the Russian Orthodox Church are allegedly being trafficked in child pornography.

In the Tver Oblast, Orthodox parishes and monasteries fall under the jurisdiction of the Metropolis (Eparchy) of Tver and Kashin, headed by Metropolitan Ambrose (Ambrosius, Ambroziy Ermakov), who has been in office since August 25, 2020 (photo opposite). This metropolitan is very close to Patriarch Kirill, himself an agent of the FSB.

Metropolitan Ambrose, whose given name is Vitali Anatolievitch Ermakov, was born on June 15, 1970, in the village of Luzhki (Kursk region). He was ordained a monk at the age of 24, in 1994, before being ordained a hierodeacon, then a hieromonk, then auxiliary bishop in Siberia (Prokopyevsk), bishop of Gatchina, and rector of the spiritual schools of Saint Petersburg, before being promoted to archbishop and then metropolitan. In Russian and English-speaking Orthodox circles, he is known for his spiritual writings, notably the book * Expanding the Limits of the Heart *, which contains meditations on education, monastic life, and the liturgical cycle. Less gloriously, his time at the spiritual schools of Saint Petersburg was reportedly marred by a sordid pedophilia scandal. God does not seem to have held it against him...

Jean-Marc Adolphe

(Investigation to be continued in other oblasts of Russia...)

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