45 Children in Russia's Prosecution Machine: What Happens When the System That Doesn't Distinguish Targets Someone Under 18

The system does not distinguish by age.

Between 2009 and 2025, Russia opened 48 criminal prosecutions against approximately 45 children under the age of 18 (25 named, 20 anonymous or unidentified in the OVD-Info dataset). 12 are currently imprisoned. The youngest was 14. The cases range from distributing anti-war flyers and building structures in Minecraft to attempted arson of military recruitment offices and, in one case, an alleged school shooting threat. The system applied the same Criminal Code articles, the same charging patterns, and the same facially incompatible statutes it uses on adults. It does not have a juvenile mode.

13 prosecutions in 13 years. Then 35 in four.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the OVD-Info dataset records 13 prosecutions over 13 years (2009 to 2021). After the invasion, 35 prosecutions occurred in four years (2022 to 2025). The annual rate increased roughly fivefold.

45 is the floor. The real number is at least 427.

The OVD-Info dataset records 45 minors across 48 prosecutions. But OVD-Info tracks only cases they can independently confirm as politically motivated. Multiple independent sources document a far larger scale:

Why the OVD-Info number is lower

In a meeting with OVD-Info's data and legal team (September 2026), the organization identified three structural gaps in their dataset that explain the discrepancy:

1. FSB cases operate outside the court system. The Federal Security Service conducts investigations and detentions that never enter the public court record. If no lawyer or family member contacts OVD-Info, the case is invisible. For minors recruited into sabotage by unknown handlers via Telegram (as documented by Novaya Gazeta), the FSB may detain, interrogate, and release without any court filing. These cases never reach OVD-Info's database.

2. Terrorism and treason case materials are classified. Under Russian law, cases involving Art. 205 (terrorism) and Art. 275 (treason) are heard behind closed doors by military courts. Case files are sealed. OVD-Info learns about them only when the lawyer, the family, or a journalist breaks the silence. The Kansk teenagers' trial (Uvarov, Mikhailenko, Andreyev) was held entirely behind closed doors.

3. Occupied territories are not covered. Crimea (since 2014) and the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson are largely invisible to OVD-Info's monitoring. Freedom House rates Russian-occupied territories at negative one on its freedom scale. Minors detained in these areas are outside the reach of Russian human rights organizations. As recently as September 2026, a 16-year-old in occupied Sevastopol was charged with participation in a terrorist organization, with no further details made public.

The 45 minors in the OVD-Info dataset are the cases that broke through all three barriers: the case entered the court system, the case materials were at least partially accessible, and the case occurred in internationally recognized Russian territory with monitoring coverage. The 427 figure from Memorial (which includes cases from its own network, media monitoring, and court scraping) is closer to the real number, and Memorial itself says the actual count is likely higher still.

At what age does the state decide you are a terrorist?

Anna Zhuravleva was 14 years old when Russia charged her with terrorism (Art. 205) and terror financing (Art. 205.5). She faces 3 simultaneous ICCPR violations (Articles 14, 18, 22). She is still imprisoned. She is now approximately 17.

The names behind the numbers.

Independent journalism has documented the circumstances of the most prominent cases. What follows is drawn from published reporting by BBC, RFE/RL, Moscow Times, CNN, Novaya Gazeta, Mediazona, Memorial, and OVD-Info.

Speech, property, violence: what the 45 cases actually involved

The same article. A 14-year-old and an 88-year-old.

The table below shows the youngest and oldest person charged under each Criminal Code article in the OVD-Info dataset. The same legal instrument is applied across the entire age range.

Prosecuted under a law that did not exist when they were born.

Article 354.1 ("rehabilitation of Nazism") was enacted in 2014 and expanded in 2022. Twelve children have been prosecuted under it. All were born after 2005. The law was written, and within months, applied to minors. The oldest of these children was 17 when the statute was signed. The youngest was 15.

This is not retroactive prosecution in the formal legal sense: the alleged conduct occurred after the law was enacted. But the effect is the same. A child who was 14 when the statute was written was prosecuted under it at 15. The state created the crime, then applied it to children who had no prior notice that the conduct was illegal, because the conduct was not illegal when they were old enough to understand the concept.

Children are more likely to be charged under facially incompatible statutes.

Which rights did Russia violate against children?

The SKOS vocabulary maps each Criminal Code article to the ICCPR provisions it facially violates. When a child is prosecuted under Art. 354.1, the ontology records a mapped violation of ICCPR Art. 19 (freedom of expression). When a child is prosecuted under Art. 205.5 (terror financing, applied to a Jehovah's Witness), the ontology records mapped violations of Art. 18 (freedom of conscience) and Art. 22 (freedom of association). These are structural mappings from domestic statute to international treaty provision, based on analyst judgment (not legally reviewed).

Compound violations: 5 children facing 3+ simultaneous rights violations

Four articles the system uses on adults but never on children.

Of all the high-frequency Criminal Code articles in the OVD-Info dataset, only four have never been applied to a minor. The question is whether this reflects restraint or opportunity.

No psychiatric detention. But 6 girls.

Zero of the 45 prosecuted minors are in compulsory psychiatric treatment. The adult dataset includes 84 persons in psychiatric detention, many for speech-related charges. The system imprisons children. It does not psychiatrically detain them. Whether this reflects a policy boundary or simply the age demographics of psychiatric commitments is not clear from the data.

Gender

6 of 45 minors are female (13%). The youngest girl is Anna Zhuravleva (14, terrorism and terror financing). The second youngest is Eva Bagrova (16, terror recruitment). The adult dataset shows a similar gender split: women represent a minority of political prosecutions across all charge categories. The system's treatment of girls mirrors its treatment of women: present, but outnumbered.

Maximum force on a child

Prosecuted as a child. Prosecuted again as an adult.

Two individuals in the dataset were prosecuted as minors and then prosecuted again after turning 18. The system followed them across the age boundary.

Entered as children. Still imprisoned.

12 of the approximately 45 persons prosecuted as minors are currently imprisoned according to the OVD-Info dataset. 36 are not. Two of the imprisoned have been inside for 17 years.

The system shows no juvenile procedural distinctions.

Every Criminal Code article used on a child is also used on adults. No high-frequency adult charge is withheld from minors. The charge distribution for children overrepresents terrorism articles (Art. 205: 9.2% for minors vs 2.4% for adults), vandalism (Art. 214: 10.5% vs 1.6%), and weapons charges (Art. 222.1: 6.6% vs 1.3%). Children are not prosecuted less severely. They are prosecuted differently: more terrorism, more weapons, more vandalism.

St. Petersburg prosecutes children at 3.5x the adult rate.

36 of 48 child prosecutions have location data. Half are concentrated in three cities: Moscow (8), St. Petersburg (7), and Ulan-Ude (3). But the raw counts obscure the real finding: some cities prosecute children at dramatically higher rates relative to their adult prosecution volume.

A 17-year-old charged alongside adults aged 35 to 77.

17 probable co-defendant groups in the dataset contain both minors and adults charged under the same articles in the same year and location. These groups are identified by proxy matching (same year, same location, same charge combination), not by confirmed case identifiers. The ontology contains a `partOfCase` property, but the proxy matching provides broader coverage. Some of these groups may represent separate cases that happen to share characteristics. ICCPR Art. 10(2)(b) requires that accused juvenile persons be separated from adults. In the confirmed cases (Uvarov/Mikhailenko/Andreyev from journalism; Astashin/Lebedev from case linkage), children were charged together with adults in the same proceedings.

In the most extreme case, a 17-year-old was charged under Art. 282.2 (participation in an extremist organization) in the same case as 26 adults, the oldest of whom was 77. The system placed a child in the same legal proceeding as adults more than four times his age. This is a documented Art. 10(2)(b) violation: the child was not separated from adults.

6 children charged under statutes that violate rights Russia cannot suspend.

ICCPR Art. 4(2) lists rights that cannot be derogated even in a state of emergency, even during war, even under martial law. Art. 18 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) is on that list. Six child prosecutions involve charges that, as applied, violate Art. 18. The distinction between "as written" and "as applied" matters: Art. 205.5 as written criminalizes terror financing, but when applied to Jehovah's Witnesses for religious donations (as it was for Koryakin, Turbin, and Zaitsev), it functions as a restriction on freedom of conscience. Art. 148 (insulting religious feelings, applied to Kurdov) more directly implicates Art. 18 as written. The SKOS mappings that connect these charges to Art. 18 are analyst judgments. The treaty text is not.

Every child prosecution violates 4 ICCPR articles the ontology wasn't counting.

The ontology maps each Criminal Code article to the ICCPR provisions it violates. But it does not map the fact of being a child to ICCPR Art. 24 (rights of the child), Art. 10(2)(b) (juvenile separation), Art. 10(3) (juvenile treatment), or Art. 14(4) (juvenile procedure). These four articles apply to every child prosecution, but the violation is not automatic: it depends on whether Russia's treatment of these specific children fails to meet the articles' requirements. The evidence from this dataset and from published journalism suggests systemic failure on all four:

Art. 10(2)(b) (juvenile separation): 17 probable co-defendant groups contain both minors and adults. Turbin was beaten by adult cellmates. Balazeikin was housed with a former Wagner mercenary who threatened to kill him.

Art. 10(3) (juvenile treatment): Turbin lost 17 kilograms in detention. Zhuravleva was bullied by cellmates and transferred to a psychiatric hospital. A torture case was opened. Balazeikin is being denied medication for autoimmune hepatitis.

Art. 14(4) (juvenile procedure): Uvarov, Balazeikin, and Turbin were tried by military courts, not civilian juvenile courts. Hearings were closed. FSB agents fabricated evidence against Turbin (per Mediazona). Confessions from Uvarov's co-defendants were described as extracted "under pressure and threats."

Art. 24 (rights of the child): The state classified children as young as 14 as terrorists, placed them on the federal terrorist registry, and applied the same Criminal Code articles used on adults without age-appropriate differentiation.