The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has "Russified" Ukrainian children abducted by the country's occupying forces, according to a new investigation.
Children from orphanages and boarding schools in the occupied Donetsk region were sent to Russia's Rostov region, a joint investigation by Russian opposition student journal DOXA and open source outlet Kidmapping found.
The report, cited by the Institute for the Study of War, found that in Rostov, the children were visited by senior ROC clergyman Metropolitan Mercury - also known by his secular name Igor Ivanov - who encouraged them to consider baptism into the church.
Other ROC clergy have also called for the baptism of deported Ukrainian children into the church and reportedly encouraged them to join various "military-patriotic" youth organisations in Russia, the report said.
Ukrainian children from occupied Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts also stayed at shelters run by the ROC in Voronezh Oblast, where clergy and affiliated officials held "military-patriotic" events in an effort to encourage pro-Russian and pro-ROC sentiment among the children and cut them off from their Ukrainian identities.
The Institute for the Study of War previously found that the ROC is instrumental in enacting the Kremlin's Ukraine occupation plan.
Kremlin-appointed Commissioner on Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, against whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant due to her role in the deportation of Ukrainian children, is married to an ROC priest.
