Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Source: Suspilne
Authors: Natalia Stratonova, Kateryna Saienko
In 2024–2025, the Russians transported at least two children from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories to the “Sundowon” camp in North Korea for “re-education.” This was reported on December 3, 2025, during a U.S. Senate hearing by human rights activist and expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, Kateryna Rashevska. Suspilne’s investigative team found that the trips to the camp were coordinated by Russian youth organizations, including “The First Movement.” They learned how the groups were formed, which specific Ukrainian children ended up in North Korea, and what daily life and rules are like at “Sundowon.”
The North Korean equivalent of “Artek”
The “Sundowon” International Children’s Camp is located near the port city of Wonsan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. It is often referred to as the North Korean equivalent of the Soviet “Artek.”
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Satellite image of the “Sundowon” camp in North Korea. Google Earth
The camp opened in 1960 and underwent renovation in 2014. Children from Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos, and some African countries used to visit the camp. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “Sundowon” was effectively closed to foreigners. In 2024, amid growing rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang, Russian tourist groups were the first to return to the country, and later that summer, “Sundowon” also hosted a group of schoolchildren.
Most of the costs for foreign children’s stay at the camp are covered by North Korea’s Socialist Patriotic Youth League, according to a website dedicated to tourist destinations in the DPRK. Foreign parents reportedly pay an additional $250 to $350 for their child’s two-week trip.
Russians Organized a Selection Process for the North Korean Camp
In 2024, the Russian youth organization “Movement of the First” announced a contest called “The First Go to Sondowon.” The winners received free trips to the North Korean camp.
The organizers described the trip as a joint project between “The First Movement,” the sanctioned international children’s center “Artek,” and the directorate of the World Youth Festival. According to Russian media reports, 3,500 schoolchildren aged 14–17 from various regions of the Russian Federation applied to participate. Fifty teenagers were named the winners of the competitive selection process.
To participate, applicants had to record a video answering the question: “Why should I win this contest?” and write an essay on one of the following topics: “How I see Russia’s role in the new multipolar world,” “Why I’m interested in visiting North Korea,” or “What I would like to tell children from North Korea about Russia.”
Applications were accepted via an online form, and participants posted their videos on social media. The selection process was coordinated by Maria Raevskaya, one of the leaders of the “First Movement.”
In the summer of 2025, Russian media reported on a second trip by schoolchildren to “Sundovon”—as part of the so-called “Korean-Russian Friendship Exchange.”
The Telegram channel “Youth of Russia” stated that the main goal of Russian children’s trips to the camp was “to strengthen traditional fraternal relations between the peoples.”
“Why do they need these international exchanges? The official Russian line is that Russian children are learning about North Korean culture—that is, discovering a new country for themselves and debunking myths about it. The DPRK is effectively legitimizing its regime and promoting the Russian language and Russian culture within the country among children and teenagers. Why do they need this? It’s so they can later recruit these people, once they’ve grown up, for Russian wars,” human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska told journalists from Suspilne’s investigative unit.
“People go about their business and don’t complain about anything”: A Ukrainian boy’s experience at the “Sundowon” camp
In 2025, there were two summer sessions at the “Sundovon” camp: from July 21 to August 1 and from August 18 to 29.
The Suspilne Investigative Unit found a list of all the children in open sources. We cross-referenced the names with other mentions of the camp in Russian publications and confirmed some of the information through messages in themed Telegram chats where the children communicate.
For security reasons, we will not publish the names of the minors whom the Russians brought to the camp in North Korea. However, we will tell the story of a Ukrainian boy named Mykhailo, who was part of the first session in 2025.
We found out that 12-year-old Mykhailo was the only child from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories in that session. He is from the city of Makiivka, which was occupied in 2014.
Mykhailo attends a local high school and actively participates in contests dedicated to Russia. For example, in 2023, he won the bronze medal in the All-Russian contest “Wonder of Russia” for his video presentation titled “The Venerable Ilya of Makiivka.” In the video, Mykhailo said he was proud that “the DPR has become part of Greater Russia” and expressed hope that the war would end in victory for the Russian Federation.
Mykhailo’s mother, Iryna Vitaliivna Popova, is a Doctor of Economic Sciences, an associate professor, and the head of the Department of Banking at the Mykhailo Tugan-Baranovsky Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade. We were unable to find any information about his father.
On a Russian social media platform, we found a post in which Mykhailo described his trip to North Korea. In a comment to the propaganda outlet “ZOV DNR,” Mikhail said that he learned about the competition to be selected for the camp on the “Youth of Russia” website.
At the camp, Mikhail participated in joint cultural and sports events.
Overall, according to the young man, he learned more about the culture and traditions of both countries at the camp. “We didn’t just have fun; we visited various monuments related to the Korean War and monuments to the leaders of North Korea,” he said.
In a comment to another publication, Mikhail said that every day the children saw five or six monuments on their excursions: “I really liked it. The cult of personality is so deeply ingrained in people: they greatly revere Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un. People go about their business, and no one complains about anything. Everyone has everything they need, and everything is fine for everyone.”
Mykhailo also mentioned in the report that all the camp participants exchanged contact information, but since North Korea has its own social media platforms, he has no way to stay in touch with his Korean friends.
“Together, we’ll bring closer the day when American imperialism will be destroyed”: ideas at the camp
The journey to the “ideological summer” began for the children of the first session—including Mikhail—at the Vladivostok airport. The first stop was Pyongyang. Upon arrival, the participants took part in a mandatory cultural program: a visit to the “Liberation” monument and a day at a local water park.
The main idea behind the monument is to acknowledge and express gratitude for Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, which, according to Pyongyang’s official position, took place with the participation of Soviet troops.
And at the Pyongyang water park, the children were greeted by a statue of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Russian propaganda narratives are also present at the camp. In a video published in 2024, one of the camp participants delivers a speech against a backdrop of armed Russian soldiers, which is then translated into Korean:
“Now that Russia and North Korea have become allies, the days of American imperialism are numbered. Washington, rapidly losing its influence, will try to spark a new conflict near our borders. Therefore, we must be vigilant and always ready to repel new aggression by the U.S. We, the members of the Youth Army, and you, our North Korean allies, will become the new heirs of our parents, who serve in the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Korean People’s Army. And together, we will bring closer the day when American imperialism is destroyed,” says the speaker in the video.
Sweeping the Monument to the Leaders: Russia Sent a Boy from Makiivka to a Summer Camp in North Korea
The speaker in the video is Vladislav Kushnirenko, a history teacher at School No. 80 in Khabarovsk and a former activist with the “Young Guard.” In August 2024, Kushnirenko traveled to “Songdowon” with 18 students. That same year, he founded a club at his school dedicated to studying North Korea’s state ideology, and he regularly attends events related to the DPRK.
Sweeping the Monument to the Leaders: Russia Sent a Boy from Makiivka to a North Korean
Summer Camp Vladislav Kushnirenko in downtown Pyongyang in 2025. Kushnirenko’s
Telegram channel During a “friendship evening” on July 29, 2025, Russian schoolchildren wrote a thank-you letter to DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.
We should add that in 2024, 16-year-old Lisa from occupied Simferopol also won a contest organized by “The First Movement” for a trip to a North Korean camp. She wrote about this on a Russian social media platform, and we also found her on the list of children selected for the trip. However, it is unknown whether Lisa actually went to the camp. Despite being very active on social media, she made no mention of the trip to North Korea, although in a post summarizing 2024 she wrote about three Russian camps she had visited.
“From what I see in the camp’s program, it promotes the idea that Russia and North Korea are countries that are incomprehensible to others—countries with their own unique cultures and visions of how a state should be built and how children should be raised. Others don’t like this vision, and that’s why Russia and North Korea ‘need to unite to stand up to the world,’ says human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska.”
Cleaning the Monument and Paid Calls to Family
We learned about the children’s living conditions at the camp from a YouTube video and Russian media reports. In one interview, a schoolgirl who had been at the “Sundowon” camp said that every morning at 6:30 a.m., the children were required to clean and sweep around the monument to the North Korean leaders — as a sign of respect for the country’s traditions and leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Camp participants wipe down the monument to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il on the grounds of “Songdowon.” Photo from Russian social media
Korean children who were also vacationing at the camp were always required to bow to the portrait of the leader hanging at the entrance to the dining hall, the girl said in an interview.
The rooms—all identical in layout and interior design—were typically occupied by five or six children. Each room had its own shower and toilet.
In most of the videos we watched, the children emphasized that photography and video recording in North Korea are strictly regulated. One of the video’s creators said they were allowed to film everything except slogans, military personnel, and statues of the leaders.
Throughout their stay at the camp, the children had no cell service or internet access, as North Korea has its own intranet and messaging apps. The camp has special rooms with phones for communicating with family members. Filming was prohibited in these rooms; however, one of the trip participants recorded a video that also showed camp officials.
According to her, each minute of a call cost $1, so every child set a stopwatch on their phone.
Camp visitors also reported that the entertainment options included computer games with violent and politicized storylines. For example, one involving the bombing of the White House.
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Teaching tolerance for war
We asked human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska why, in her opinion, the Russians are sending children to a North Korean camp.
“Trips by children, including those from the occupied territories of Ukraine, to North Korea are presented by Russia as ‘cultural exchanges’—an element of so-called ‘children’s diplomacy.’ But in essence, they are a tool of political propaganda,” Rashevska replied. “Such practices have much in common with Soviet methods of using children for state ideological purposes and are prohibited by international law. “This is not about culture or development, but about fostering loyalty to the aggressor state and its allies, particularly North Korea, which is effectively a participant in the war against Ukraine and has been designated by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
According to Rashevska, if such trips continue, more and more children from the occupied territories will find themselves in an environment where a distorted view of the world will be systematically imposed on them, aggression will be normalized, and they will be convinced of the “rightness” of the war. After such an experience, simply returning a child to Ukrainian control is not enough: the consequences of ideological influence are usually profound and long-lasting.
“Despite their outward ‘peacefulness’ and ostensible civility, such initiatives bear the hallmarks of a policy involving elements of destructive influence,” the human rights activist concludes. “Their goal is not children’s diplomacy or child development, but rather the cultivation of loyalty, the imposition of war-mongering ideologies, the tolerance of violence and tyranny, and the subversion of values. That is precisely why such practices require a clear international assessment and response.”
Authors: Natalia Stratonova, Kateryna Saienko
In 2024–2025, the Russians transported at least two children from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories to the “Sundowon” camp in North Korea for “re-education.” This was reported on December 3, 2025, during a U.S. Senate hearing by human rights activist and expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, Kateryna Rashevska. Suspilne’s investigative team found that the trips to the camp were coordinated by Russian youth organizations, including “The First Movement.” They learned how the groups were formed, which specific Ukrainian children ended up in North Korea, and what daily life and rules are like at “Sundowon.”
The North Korean equivalent of “Artek”
The “Sundowon” International Children’s Camp is located near the port city of Wonsan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. It is often referred to as the North Korean equivalent of the Soviet “Artek.”
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Satellite image of the “Sundowon” camp in North Korea. Google Earth
The camp opened in 1960 and underwent renovation in 2014. Children from Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos, and some African countries used to visit the camp. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “Sundowon” was effectively closed to foreigners. In 2024, amid growing rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang, Russian tourist groups were the first to return to the country, and later that summer, “Sundowon” also hosted a group of schoolchildren.
Most of the costs for foreign children’s stay at the camp are covered by North Korea’s Socialist Patriotic Youth League, according to a website dedicated to tourist destinations in the DPRK. Foreign parents reportedly pay an additional $250 to $350 for their child’s two-week trip.
Russians Organized a Selection Process for the North Korean Camp
In 2024, the Russian youth organization “Movement of the First” announced a contest called “The First Go to Sondowon.” The winners received free trips to the North Korean camp.
The organizers described the trip as a joint project between “The First Movement,” the sanctioned international children’s center “Artek,” and the directorate of the World Youth Festival. According to Russian media reports, 3,500 schoolchildren aged 14–17 from various regions of the Russian Federation applied to participate. Fifty teenagers were named the winners of the competitive selection process.
To participate, applicants had to record a video answering the question: “Why should I win this contest?” and write an essay on one of the following topics: “How I see Russia’s role in the new multipolar world,” “Why I’m interested in visiting North Korea,” or “What I would like to tell children from North Korea about Russia.”
Applications were accepted via an online form, and participants posted their videos on social media. The selection process was coordinated by Maria Raevskaya, one of the leaders of the “First Movement.”
In the summer of 2025, Russian media reported on a second trip by schoolchildren to “Sundovon”—as part of the so-called “Korean-Russian Friendship Exchange.”
The Telegram channel “Youth of Russia” stated that the main goal of Russian children’s trips to the camp was “to strengthen traditional fraternal relations between the peoples.”
“Why do they need these international exchanges? The official Russian line is that Russian children are learning about North Korean culture—that is, discovering a new country for themselves and debunking myths about it. The DPRK is effectively legitimizing its regime and promoting the Russian language and Russian culture within the country among children and teenagers. Why do they need this? It’s so they can later recruit these people, once they’ve grown up, for Russian wars,” human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska told journalists from Suspilne’s investigative unit.
“People go about their business and don’t complain about anything”: A Ukrainian boy’s experience at the “Sundowon” camp
In 2025, there were two summer sessions at the “Sundovon” camp: from July 21 to August 1 and from August 18 to 29.
The Suspilne Investigative Unit found a list of all the children in open sources. We cross-referenced the names with other mentions of the camp in Russian publications and confirmed some of the information through messages in themed Telegram chats where the children communicate.
For security reasons, we will not publish the names of the minors whom the Russians brought to the camp in North Korea. However, we will tell the story of a Ukrainian boy named Mykhailo, who was part of the first session in 2025.
We found out that 12-year-old Mykhailo was the only child from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories in that session. He is from the city of Makiivka, which was occupied in 2014.
Mykhailo attends a local high school and actively participates in contests dedicated to Russia. For example, in 2023, he won the bronze medal in the All-Russian contest “Wonder of Russia” for his video presentation titled “The Venerable Ilya of Makiivka.” In the video, Mykhailo said he was proud that “the DPR has become part of Greater Russia” and expressed hope that the war would end in victory for the Russian Federation.
Mykhailo’s mother, Iryna Vitaliivna Popova, is a Doctor of Economic Sciences, an associate professor, and the head of the Department of Banking at the Mykhailo Tugan-Baranovsky Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade. We were unable to find any information about his father.
On a Russian social media platform, we found a post in which Mykhailo described his trip to North Korea. In a comment to the propaganda outlet “ZOV DNR,” Mikhail said that he learned about the competition to be selected for the camp on the “Youth of Russia” website.
At the camp, Mikhail participated in joint cultural and sports events.
Overall, according to the young man, he learned more about the culture and traditions of both countries at the camp. “We didn’t just have fun; we visited various monuments related to the Korean War and monuments to the leaders of North Korea,” he said.
In a comment to another publication, Mikhail said that every day the children saw five or six monuments on their excursions: “I really liked it. The cult of personality is so deeply ingrained in people: they greatly revere Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un. People go about their business, and no one complains about anything. Everyone has everything they need, and everything is fine for everyone.”
Mykhailo also mentioned in the report that all the camp participants exchanged contact information, but since North Korea has its own social media platforms, he has no way to stay in touch with his Korean friends.
“Together, we’ll bring closer the day when American imperialism will be destroyed”: ideas at the camp
The journey to the “ideological summer” began for the children of the first session—including Mikhail—at the Vladivostok airport. The first stop was Pyongyang. Upon arrival, the participants took part in a mandatory cultural program: a visit to the “Liberation” monument and a day at a local water park.
The main idea behind the monument is to acknowledge and express gratitude for Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, which, according to Pyongyang’s official position, took place with the participation of Soviet troops.
And at the Pyongyang water park, the children were greeted by a statue of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Russian propaganda narratives are also present at the camp. In a video published in 2024, one of the camp participants delivers a speech against a backdrop of armed Russian soldiers, which is then translated into Korean:
“Now that Russia and North Korea have become allies, the days of American imperialism are numbered. Washington, rapidly losing its influence, will try to spark a new conflict near our borders. Therefore, we must be vigilant and always ready to repel new aggression by the U.S. We, the members of the Youth Army, and you, our North Korean allies, will become the new heirs of our parents, who serve in the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Korean People’s Army. And together, we will bring closer the day when American imperialism is destroyed,” says the speaker in the video.
Sweeping the Monument to the Leaders: Russia Sent a Boy from Makiivka to a Summer Camp in North Korea
The speaker in the video is Vladislav Kushnirenko, a history teacher at School No. 80 in Khabarovsk and a former activist with the “Young Guard.” In August 2024, Kushnirenko traveled to “Songdowon” with 18 students. That same year, he founded a club at his school dedicated to studying North Korea’s state ideology, and he regularly attends events related to the DPRK.
Sweeping the Monument to the Leaders: Russia Sent a Boy from Makiivka to a North Korean
Summer Camp Vladislav Kushnirenko in downtown Pyongyang in 2025. Kushnirenko’s
Telegram channel During a “friendship evening” on July 29, 2025, Russian schoolchildren wrote a thank-you letter to DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.
We should add that in 2024, 16-year-old Lisa from occupied Simferopol also won a contest organized by “The First Movement” for a trip to a North Korean camp. She wrote about this on a Russian social media platform, and we also found her on the list of children selected for the trip. However, it is unknown whether Lisa actually went to the camp. Despite being very active on social media, she made no mention of the trip to North Korea, although in a post summarizing 2024 she wrote about three Russian camps she had visited.
“From what I see in the camp’s program, it promotes the idea that Russia and North Korea are countries that are incomprehensible to others—countries with their own unique cultures and visions of how a state should be built and how children should be raised. Others don’t like this vision, and that’s why Russia and North Korea ‘need to unite to stand up to the world,’ says human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska.”
Cleaning the Monument and Paid Calls to Family
We learned about the children’s living conditions at the camp from a YouTube video and Russian media reports. In one interview, a schoolgirl who had been at the “Sundowon” camp said that every morning at 6:30 a.m., the children were required to clean and sweep around the monument to the North Korean leaders — as a sign of respect for the country’s traditions and leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Camp participants wipe down the monument to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il on the grounds of “Songdowon.” Photo from Russian social media
Korean children who were also vacationing at the camp were always required to bow to the portrait of the leader hanging at the entrance to the dining hall, the girl said in an interview.
The rooms—all identical in layout and interior design—were typically occupied by five or six children. Each room had its own shower and toilet.
In most of the videos we watched, the children emphasized that photography and video recording in North Korea are strictly regulated. One of the video’s creators said they were allowed to film everything except slogans, military personnel, and statues of the leaders.
Throughout their stay at the camp, the children had no cell service or internet access, as North Korea has its own intranet and messaging apps. The camp has special rooms with phones for communicating with family members. Filming was prohibited in these rooms; however, one of the trip participants recorded a video that also showed camp officials.
According to her, each minute of a call cost $1, so every child set a stopwatch on their phone.
Camp visitors also reported that the entertainment options included computer games with violent and politicized storylines. For example, one involving the bombing of the White House.
Sweeping the monument to the leaders: Russia sent a boy from Makiivka to a summer camp in North Korea
Teaching tolerance for war
We asked human rights activist Kateryna Rashevska why, in her opinion, the Russians are sending children to a North Korean camp.
“Trips by children, including those from the occupied territories of Ukraine, to North Korea are presented by Russia as ‘cultural exchanges’—an element of so-called ‘children’s diplomacy.’ But in essence, they are a tool of political propaganda,” Rashevska replied. “Such practices have much in common with Soviet methods of using children for state ideological purposes and are prohibited by international law. “This is not about culture or development, but about fostering loyalty to the aggressor state and its allies, particularly North Korea, which is effectively a participant in the war against Ukraine and has been designated by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
According to Rashevska, if such trips continue, more and more children from the occupied territories will find themselves in an environment where a distorted view of the world will be systematically imposed on them, aggression will be normalized, and they will be convinced of the “rightness” of the war. After such an experience, simply returning a child to Ukrainian control is not enough: the consequences of ideological influence are usually profound and long-lasting.
“Despite their outward ‘peacefulness’ and ostensible civility, such initiatives bear the hallmarks of a policy involving elements of destructive influence,” the human rights activist concludes. “Their goal is not children’s diplomacy or child development, but rather the cultivation of loyalty, the imposition of war-mongering ideologies, the tolerance of violence and tyranny, and the subversion of values. That is precisely why such practices require a clear international assessment and response.”
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.