Professor Dermot Groome co-authors report for the General Assembly on the militarization of Ukrainian children

CARLISLE, PA—Professor Dermot Groome and other international lawyers have issued a report on Russia’s practice of taking Ukrainian children and subjecting them to indoctrination and militarization. The report was presented at a side event to the UN General Assembly at the European Mission to the UN on September 24, 2026.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has taken over 20,000 Ukrainian children from their homes and brought them to Russia, where they are being subjected to systematic indoctrination, militarization, forced Russian citizenship and eventual conscription into Russian Armed Forces. Some have been sent back into Ukraine to fight as Russian soldiers when they turn 18.

After the invasion in 2022, the U.S. State Department established the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (AGA), a joint effort by the U.S., U.K. and E.U. to provide expert advice and support in the investigation and prosecution of atrocity crimes. Groome was one of the first experts asked to join ACA and has traveled four times to Ukraine to train Ukrainian prosecutors and judges.

Bring Back Kids UA, a nonprofit started by First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska to repatriate kidnapped Ukrainian children, asked ACA to analyze Russia’s systematic indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children and determine whether it violated international law. On September 24, 2026, ACA’s interim report was presented to the diplomatic corps at a side event to the 81^st UN meeting of the General Assembly held at the European Mission to the UN. The report finds that Russian indoctrination and militarization of children “breach the obligations of the Russian Federation under the law of occupation and under IHRL [international human rights law], and that international courts and treaty bodies have already made findings to that effect in respect of education, language, identity, and the transfer of children.” The report is available by clicking here.

Groome led a team of international and Ukrainian lawyers in writing the report. The group will continue its investigation and analysis of Russia’s indoctrination and militarization practices as additional information becomes available. Cata Penenory ’26 volunteered to assist the group in researching and drafting the report. Penenory is currently an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Professor Dermot Groome is a Professor of Law and the Harvey A. Feldman Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Penn State Dickinson Law. Much of his teaching, scholarship, and service focus on emerging areas of human rights and international criminal law and draw upon his deep expertise and experiences. After starting his career in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was a member of the Sex Crimes Unit, and after working in Jamaica, W.I. on issues of community development, human rights, and children’s rights, Professor Groome worked in Cambodia. While in Cambodia, he served as a Legal Advisor to the International Human Rights Law Group, helped lead an investigation into a 1997 attack on peaceful protestors and drafted a report for the UN Security Council, helped the Cambodia Defender’s Project and Legal Aid of Cambodia investigate deaths in police custody, worked on issues related to the incarceration of children, and wrote a draft juvenile criminal procedure code. Professor Groome subsequently spent over 11 years as a senior war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He investigated and drafted the first genocide indictment against a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milošević, and was the Senior Trial Attorney for the Bosnia indictment. In total, Groome led the prosecution of five international criminal trials including the case against Ratko Mladić, who was convicted of genocide for the murder of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. He led eight large complex international investigations of senior military, political, and police officials. Groome’s cases all included crimes of sexual violence against women, men, and children. He was instrumental in the development of Joint Criminal Enterprise, a theory of criminal responsibility often used to assess the culpability of senior officials for the crimes committed by their subordinates. Two documentaries have been made about Professor Groome’s cases: The Trial of Ratko Mladić (PBS/Frontline 2019) and Crimes Before the ICTY: Višegrad (UN TV 2017).