Vladimir Putin is recruiting Ukrainian children to build a drone army to fight against their homeland and threaten Nato's eastern flank, a chilling new report warns.

The dictator is indoctrinating boys and girls from the age of eight in occupied territory to pilot the deadly devices and kill their own countrymen and women.

It is part of a relentless drive to recruit and train one million unmanned aerial systems (UAS) specialists to take on the West by 2030, analysts say.

Researchers have identified three drone schools in Mariupol along with more across captured cities in the regions of Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk.

In occupied Luhansk, students trained in small groups are offered incentives – including receiving bonus points toward national exams – for top performers.

The programs extend further, including training for disabled children in occupied Kherson Oblast and drone competitions for those as young as eight to 12 years of age.

The report titled 'Russia's Coercive Occupation of Ukraine' by New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy warns Putin's aim for a million strong drone army by 2030 is 'not hypothetical'.

'The system is already in motion and actively producing future recruits,' it states.

'This aligns closely with the period in which experts anticipate sustained or renewed operations against Ukraine, as well as a potential confrontation along NATO’s eastern flank.'

It comes as this week the UK sanctioned 85 individuals and entities involved in the forced deportation, indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children.

Author Megan Gittoes told the Mail: 'This is a chilling assembly line of indoctrination.

'Russia is taking children from the towns it destroyed and brainwashing them to fly the very drones that will target their own countrymen today, and potentially threaten Europe tomorrow.'

Ms Gittoes drew on research by Dr Jade McGlynn and Petro Andriushchenko of King's College London into forced mobilisation in occupied territories.

They have identified three schools training youth to operate drones in Mariupol as well as a UAV laboratory at the Priazovsky State Technical University in Donetsk.

Ukrainian children are put onto 256-hour courses while youngsters with gaming experience are most sought after as they can be trained within just one to two days.

It is part of a sprawling state-linked network of facilities across Russian and occupied territories that spans over 200 identified sites to recruit youths into the military.

Within these facilities, children are subjected to ideological re-education, military training, and labour linked to the Russian war effort.

One boy who escaped and spoke to Ms Gittoes said the military tutors are obsessed with NATO and its borders.

'The Russians directly told us that “we are going to fight back with NATO”,' said the boy, who cannot be identified. 'I attended two schools online as well.'

He added: 'Their most important lessons were the history of Russia, the talks about importance and “Russia my borders” that’s what they directly enforced; that Russia is everything, and that’s it and there will be nothing else.'

Just this week Ukrainian Resistance shared images from a drone class in occupied Kherson, where teenage children are seen being trained to fly UAVs.

Russian soldiers in uniform are seen showing the boys the aircraft and training them how to use the controls.

In her report, Ms Gittoes states: 'The militarization of children through education and education through propaganda represent a central pillar of Putin’s long-term war strategy: Advancing Russia’s reach westward by absorbing Ukrainian children into a future pool of military-age citizens while systematically eroding Ukraine’s national cohesion.'

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported in 2019 that 18,000 Ukrainians living in Crimea were illegally conscripted to serve in Russia’s armed forces.

Some who were children at the time of initial annexation in 2014 were eventually conscripted and have since died fighting their homeland.

It is a chilling reminder that children now being trained to fly drones could be deployed on the battlefield in the coming years as a solution to Russia's manpower shortage.

Britain this week sanctioned Yulia Velichko, Minister for Youth Policy in the so‑called ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’, for her role in implementing state‑led initiatives for the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

It also sanctioned the Centre for Military Sports Training and Patriotic Education of Youth, known as the ‘Warrior Centre’, where Ukrainian children are subjected to military training and pro‑Kremlin ideology.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: 'The UK will not stand idly by as Putin seeks to sow lies and pro-Kremlin narratives abroad.

'Today’s sanctions are a strong step in exposing and disrupting the depths Russia is willing to go, to interfere and undermine democracy, and destroy Ukraine’s future through the abhorrent deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

'The UK’s support for Ukraine remains ironclad and we will continue to work alongside our allies to support every effort to identify and trace the children that have been cruelly taken from their communities and bring them home.'