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The Hill
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Russia still holds an untold number of abducted Ukrainian children
As negotiations continue between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing for the return of thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children. Earlier this month in Istanbul, Russia acknowledged deporting children from eastern Ukraine. U.S. senators have introduced a bipartisan resolution calling for the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. President Trump should do more to help bring these kids home. Vladimir Putin's goal in Ukraine isn't just to seize territory. His war is against Ukrainian identity itself — a mission in keeping with centuries of Russian efforts to suppress Ukrainian culture. As part of this agenda, Russia has abducted more than 19,500 children from occupied Ukrainian territory. And that's just the number of confirmed cases. The true number is likely much higher. In 2023, Russia's children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, boasted that Moscow had taken 700,000 Ukrainian children. That same year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova for unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, which is a war crime. According to Daria Gerasymchuk, the Ukrainian ombudsman for children's rights, child abduction takes multiple forms. Sometimes, parents are arrested or even killed, and their children are taken in their absence. Some kids have been separated from their relatives. In other cases, parents living in difficult conditions under Russian occupation are convinced to send their children to camps in Russia, believing they will be safer. Once there, however, the children are taken away to other locations without their parents' knowledge or consent. Most never return home. Many are adopted by Russian families. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) emphasized that Putin has kidnapped children to 'Russify them in an attempt to destroy their cultural identity and heritage.' Those who have returned report that they were subjected to intense brainwashing. They are forced to wear Russian military symbols and participate in militaristic, anti-Ukrainian activities. Russian teachers are told that their goal is to 'form a Russian identity in the rising generation' from the occupied Ukrainian regions. Children still residing in those regions face similar treatment. Moscow hopes this will solidify its control over the occupied territories. Not only is Russia attempting to eradicate Ukrainian identity — it is literally weaponizing Ukrainian children to support its war effort. According to Ukrainian authorities, there are cases 'on a daily basis' in which Russian intelligence has lured minors, often recruited via social media, into carrying out sabotage operations. Lithuania blamed the Russian military intelligence service for being behind an arson attack after Russia recruited a teenage Ukrainian to burn down an IKEA store. He was promised a BMW and $11,000 in cash. The return of Ukrainian children is one of Kyiv's key demands in peace talks. The Ukrainians want all illegally displaced children, along with prisoners of war, returned to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire. American officials have similarly suggested that children's repatriation should be part of a potential peace deal. Washington should pressure Russia to the abducted children to Ukraine by using sticks, such as tougher sanctions, to get Putin to agree. Moscow's strategy of forcefully turning the next generation into Russian 'patriots' who stand against Ukrainian independence will guarantee a continuation of violence and unrest. Putin sees children as part of his war machine. By eroding their identity, instilling them with 'patriotic' Russian values and beliefs, and even recruiting them to commit violence, he is treating innocent humans as pawns and weapons, destroying any semblance of the lives they left behind. Ivana Stradner is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Japan Forward
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Forward
Ukraine and Its Abducted Children: Will Justice Prevail?
It would appear that in pursuing his "mission" to transform Ukraine into a vassal of Moscow and expunge the identity of the Ukrainian people, no crime is too vile for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022 presents a sordid record of terror and war crimes. Hospitals and schools have been targeted. And when the initial Russian drive to take Kyiv was turned back, vengeful Russian soldiers responded with brutality. They turned the city of Bucha into a hellscape of rape, torture, and massacre. Even now, Ukrainian POWs and other civilians in Russian custody are being systematically tortured. This mirrors how Ukrainian nationalists and other "enemies of the people" were treated during Soviet times. Then, as now, they are labeled "fascists" or "Nazis." But perhaps Putin's greatest crime is his campaign to abduct and brainwash Ukrainian children, often in "reeducation camps," to "Russify" them. An explosion in Kyiv, Ukraine, following a Russian military attack on May 7, 2025 (©Reuters / Kyodo) In March 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two Russian officials. One was President Vladimir Putin. The other was Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. She is the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. They are accused of being responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. An exclusive report appeared on April 30 in the Substack newsletter Spy Talk . Veteran investigative journalist Michael Isikoff wrote that, according to a reliable source, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court "have begun preparing potential new charges against Putin and possibly other top Russian officials for 'crimes against humanity.'" Reportedly, prosecutors in The Hague have already begun drafting warrants. They hope to get final approval from ICC judges for issuing the warrants soon. According to Isikoff's source, "The planes are on the tarmac…They're waiting for clearance from the tower." The additional charges against Putin and his accomplices are based, at least in part, on significant new evidence of widespread abductions. This evidence is detailed in a new Conflict Observatory report by the Yale School of Public Health. Funded by the US State Department, the report draws on unclassified imagery from US satellites. It also accesses flight data produced by the Russian government itself. This research is the most extensive public effort to date to track the stolen children of Ukraine. The report reads in part, "Yale HRl has determined with high confidence that the Russian Federation has engaged in the systematic, intentional and widespread coerced adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine." It is forbidden by international law for an occupying power to transfer civilians from their home territory. Furthermore, children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention. However, funding for the project to trace abductions of young Ukrainians runs out on May 16. In the meantime, Donald Trump's administration has been closing down offices documenting Russian war crimes and reassigning analysts who handled that work. Putin's existing arrest warrant has prevented him from traveling freely. He risks arrest in any of the more than 120 countries and territories that are signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC. However, Russia, China, and the United States do not recognize the court's jurisdiction. (Out of concern that US soldiers might be subject to prosecution, the US declined to sign.) According to a United Nations human rights report released in March 2025, conditions for children in Russian-occupied Ukraine have sharply deteriorated. Since Russia annexed four regions of Ukraine in late 2022, Moscow has imposed Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children. They have also enforced the Russian school curriculum and restricted access to education in the Ukrainian language. Besides being force-fed Russian war propaganda, Ukrainian children have also been required to participate in military-patriotic training. One teenage boy subjected to such a camp regimen said that the military training was to prepare older boys so they later could "be sent to fight against fellow Ukrainians." A hospital building in Sumy Oblast, northeastern Ukraine, attacked by Russia (Provided by the National Police of Ukraine, Reuters / Kyodo) Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine have also started to push a pronatalist policy to encourage Ukrainian girls to become pro-Russian mothers. Their aim is for these girls to raise several children loyal to the Russian state, while the boys grow up to serve Moscow either as soldiers or in some other capacity. Such actions blatantly violate international humanitarian law, which obliges an occupying power to protect children and respect their national identity. On April 30, 2025, the Institute for the Study of War published a Russian Occupation Update. It reported that Russia is planning a large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children. Tens of thousands — 53,000 by one count — are to be sent to summer camps across occupied Ukraine and Russia. Some of these camps are located in unsafe areas of Crimea. The summer experience is designed to expose Ukrainian youth to the "culture and way of life of the Motherland." Such violations of human rights seem to be appropriate in the minds of Putin and other Russian ultranationalists. They believe that Russia has the "right" to reclaim all the territories it once ruled. That would include, among several now independent nations, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States. In 2021, while preparing to invade Ukraine, Vladimir Putin published the widely publicized essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians . In it, he claimed that Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are one people. He described them as "parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space." The distorted history lesson he presents in the essay is essentially meant to allow Putin to portray himself as the champion of Russian divine destiny. It is very much a case of resurrecting the old method of conquest employed by Imperial Russia: absorb neighboring territory and then claim that it had always been part of "Mother Russia." Anyone who believes that Putin will respect a "permanent" ceasefire and be satisfied with the parts of Ukraine he has already annexed is sorely deluded. He will be no more satisfied than Adolf Hitler was when he was awarded the Sudetenland at Munich in 1938. Vladimir may not choose to stop. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting. In late April, Japan joined other G7 countries in a coalition seeking to bring children abducted by Russia back to Ukraine. Author: John Carroll
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia should not be trusted, continues genocide, Ukrainian official says
Russia cannot be trusted and must be held accountable for its war crimes and ongoing genocide, Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa said in a wide-ranging interview with The Sun, published on March 29. "Aggressor(s) should not be appeased, aggression should not be rewarded... we can not live in a world where impunity prevails over the rule of law," Betsa . "Russia has committed genocide, and Russia continues to commit genocide on an industrial scale, every day, every single minute," Betsa said. The U.S. has held separate meetings with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia to kickstart peace negotiations. A ceasefire and returning Ukrainian children are among the key topics on the table. Betsa decried Russia for conducting mass in Ukraine, adding that deportations began in 2014 in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. "Now with the full-scale invasion, Russia deports Ukrainian children, it abducts Ukrainian children... it erases their identity," Betsa said, adding that Russian authorities change the names of Ukrainian children, issue Russian passports, and actively try to Russify them. "There should be a robust response by the international community," Betsa said, adding that Russia's deportation of is still ongoing. Since February 2022, at least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted from Russian-occupied areas and transferred to other Russian-controlled territories or Russia, according to the Ukrainian national database "." The Ukrainian government has returned 1,247 children so far, according to the Ministry of Reintegration. "We have so many children to whom Russia also uses sexual violence, and there are cases which are registered like that," Betsa said. "We can not trust Russia, lies and they know how to lie, so no one should be fooled by Russia." "No one should believe Russia's words, Russia's statements to the media," Betsa said when asked if a ceasefire deal would be brokered. Russia's commitment to should be observed by its actions, Betsa said, adding that Ukraine has agreed to a full ceasefire, but Russia has not. "Ukraine will never accept territorial compromises, unjust peace. It will never accept (a) situation where our , illegally detained persons, and children are not returned. They should return all of them, and children should be returned unconditionally," Betsa said. Read also: 'You can't trust Russians' — Europe's Ukraine peacekeeping plans face one obvious hurdle We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Putin's occupied territories deportation decree 'part of genocide policy,' Ukraine says
Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree threatening Ukrainians with deportation from occupied territories and Russian territory violates international law, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said on March 21. "We emphasize that these systematic deportations and persecutions are part of Russia's genocide policy against the Ukrainian people," Tykhyi said. According to the decree, Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories must leave by Sept. 10 or "regulate their legal status." The decree intensifies Moscow's efforts to Russify conquered areas by pressuring Ukrainians to accept Russian passports or forcing them out while encouraging Russian citizens to move in. Putin's decree also mandates that all "foreign citizens and stateless persons" residing in the occupied territories must undergo medical screenings for drug use and infectious diseases by June 10. Tykhyi denounced the decree as null and void, calling it another step in Russia's campaign of discrimination, persecution, and forced displacement of Ukrainian citizens. The spokesperson also said it contradicts Moscow's claims of readiness for a peaceful settlement and undermines initiatives to establish peace. "The Kremlin is once again demonstrating that its true goal is to destroy Ukrainian statehood and persecute Ukrainian citizens," he added. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and declared the annexation of partially occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in 2022, treating them as Russian territory despite international condemnation. As Russia continues to occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory, the fate of these regions is expected to be a major topic in peace negotiations pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said territorial issues will be among the most difficult aspects of any negotiations and reiterated that Ukraine will not recognize Russian rule over its land. Since 2014, reports of abuse, torture, and repression in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories have increased, escalating further after the full-scale invasion in 2022. Read also: Putin's suspension of strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure still in effect, Kremlin says We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Putin orders Ukrainians 'without legal status' to leave Russia, occupied territories by Sept. 10
Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine must leave by Sept. 10 or "regulate their legal status," according to an official decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and published on March 20. "Citizens of Ukraine who are in the Russian Federation and do not have legal grounds for staying (residing) in the Russian Federation are required to leave the Russian Federation on their own or regulate their legal status in the Russian Federation by Sept. 10, 2025," the decree reads. Russia illegally declared annexation of fully occupied Crimea in 2014 and partially occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia in 2022, de facto treating Ukrainian sovereign territory as its own regions. The decree comes amid Moscow's efforts to Russify the conquered territories by pressuring Ukrainian citizens into accepting Russian passports or forcing them out while trying to attract Russian citizens to move in. The document says the order will not concern Ukrainian citizens who will register their status with the Russian Interior Ministry by Sept. 10. The decree further ordered all "foreign citizens and stateless persons" residing in the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to undergo medical checks on drug use and infectious diseases by June 10. As Russia continues to hold roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory, the fate of the occupied regions is likely to be a key topic in expected peace negotiations pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump. President Volodymyr Zelensky said territorial matters would be one of the most difficult aspects of the negotiations while rejecting the possibility of recognizing Russian rule over its territories. Multiple reports of abuse, torture, and repression have emerged from Russian-held territories of Ukraine since 2014, with the cases only escalating after the outbreak of the full-scale war in 2022. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
