Abducting Ukrainian Children
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.
- 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)
CNN: Russia’s war machine is trying to turn Ukrainian teenagers into soldiers
“We now have examples of forcible mobilization of Ukrainian people. All Ukrainian teenagers held in Russia, when they turn 18, they are put on a (recruitment) list of Russian military.”
– Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, 3/15/24