Russia is forcibly removing Ukrainian children from their families and holding them in Russia against their will in an attempt to erase their Ukrainian identity.

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• Since the start of the war, Russian forces have forcibly removed 20,000 Ukrainian children from their country without the consent of their families or guardians. (Reuters, 6/15/24)

• Russia is trying to erase Ukrainian identity by placing kidnapped children in Russian schools and banishing Ukrainian language, history and literature from the curriculum. (The Wall Street Journal, 6/20/23)

• Russia’s removal of children is the largest-scale deportation of children in Europe since the Second World War. In some cases, Russian authorities are giving children new names to fully erase their Ukrainian identity. (The Guardian, 2/4/24)

• The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges related to his forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. (International Criminal Court, 3/17/23)

• Russia is forcing these trafficked Ukrainian children to film Russian propaganda, falsely claiming that Russians have rescued them. (The New York Times, 6/2/24)