Moscow plans to educate Chinese children in occupied Ukraine
Moscow and Beijing are planning to establish a Chinese educational “enclave” in occupied Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, the Eastern Human Rights Group told NV on Aug. 16.
The plan envisions a school for 300 students in the region. But it would not stop there: the project aims to create a full-fledged educational enclave where children from China could complete secondary education under Russian oversight.
The report comes from the Eastern Human Rights Group, which monitors conditions in Ukrainian territories seized by Russia.
According to the group, Chinese “activists” are already working through the Russian Territorial Development Fund to register a legal entity and find premises for the school.
Oleg Koval, a representative of the Moscow-installed Luhansk “authorities,” told one local outlet that in China, full secondary education is not entirely free. High school requires tuition, and admission is based on exams. For that reason, he claimed, some Chinese parents look for alternatives abroad—and Russia is offering them occupied Luhansk.
On June 26, 2025, Ivan Kusov, head of the so-called “Education Ministry of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” even met with a delegation of Chinese officials. According to Russian propaganda outlets, the talks covered not only the opening of a school but also Chinese student enrollment in local universities, the creation of joint enterprises, and “business modernization.”
“If a school is being built for at least 300 people, how many families will move there? How many specialists will be involved?” said Vera Yastrebova, director of the Eastern Human Rights Group.
“China does not trust the [Russian] occupation authorities. It wants to integrate directly. So, China will send its own experts, managers, and specialists...”
Is China Moving In?
This educational “initiative” follows a surge of contacts between Chinese representatives and the occupation “administrations” of Russian-held parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts between May and July 2025, according to documents examined by NV.
But the focus of this relationship remains on the economy.
NV has previously reported on the arrival of Chinese business in Russian-occupied parts of southern and eastern Ukraine.
That trend is continuing, as seen from open Russian sources. Moscow and its occupation authorities are working to attract Chinese partners with the “opportunities” in seized Ukrainian regions.
At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June, occupation “officials”—including collaborators from Kherson—signed “agreements” aimed at entering Asian markets. These included pledges to “develop trade and economic ties” with China, Vietnam, and countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In July, the occupation “Agriculture Ministry” in Kherson reported talks with “eastern partners” about rapeseed exports.
In May, Donko, a Donetsk-based company, showcased its products in Harbin, Heilongjiang, which propaganda outlets dubbed the “first DPR booth in China.”
Russian business news outlet RBC reported that in the summer, Promsvyazbank, one of Russia’s largest state-controlled banks, organized a trip to China for 10 “Russian” entrepreneurs from occupied Ukraine. The group included managers of the Avanti pasta factory, the Luhansk cold-storage plant, sausage and confectionery producers from Donetsk, and the Melitopol Cherries company.
Still, not all Russian claims about “official contacts” between Chinese representatives and occupation administrations hold up to scrutiny.
In late July, Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader of the self-proclaimed “LNR,” triumphantly announced that “Chinese businessmen” had arrived in Luhansk to “invest” in the region, and that they had even signed a “memorandum of economic cooperation.”
But reporters with Realna Hazeta, a Luhansk-based outlet now operating from Kyiv, found otherwise. The supposed “Chinese businessmen” were in fact two men from Russia’s Voronezh Oblast—Talekh Abasov and a businessman named Liu Yantao — along with a former entrepreneur from Krasnoyarsk, Li Zhiyuan, who holds a Russian passport.
The military war may be swinging in our favor, but the information war continues.
Just as an army needs soldiers, so does a free society need its journalists to ensure that people have access to honest, trustworthy voices to understand the world around them.
For the past five years, The New Voice of Ukraine has been working tirelessly to push back against Russian narratives and defend democracy. But we cannot do it alone.
Please consider supporting us on Patreon for just $5 a month – your donation does directly to supporting journalists and ensuring that this front of the infowar says solid and defended.
Thank you.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
