Child abductions in the Russo-Ukrainian War
During the Russo-Ukrainian War,[3] Russia has forcibly transferred almost 20 thousand Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.[7][8] The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.[8][9] The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin[10] (who has explicitly supported the forced adoptions, including by enacting legislation to facilitate them)[1] and Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement.[10] According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.[11][a]
Child abductions in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Ukrainian children
549[4]
1,354[4]
International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova
Ukrainian children have been abducted by the Russian state after their parents had been arrested by Russian occupation authorities or killed in the invasion,[12][13] or after becoming separated from their parents in an active war zone.[14] Children have also been abducted from Ukrainian state institutions in occupied areas, and through children's "summer camps" on Russian territory.[12] The abducted children have been subject to Russification;[1][14] raising children of war in a foreign nation and culture may constitute an act of genocide if intended to erase their national identity.[1]
Ukrainian authorities have verified the identities of[15] over 19,000 abducted children,[16] compiling and actively updating the data as part of an online platform: "Children of War". Russian authorities have claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been "evacuated" by mid-2023,[6] and Ukraine's ombudsman on children's rights believes that the actual number of abducted children may be in the hundreds of thousands.[15] A charitable organisation, Save Ukraine, facilitates the repatriation and family reunification of abducted Ukrainian children.[17][13] Daria Herasymchuk is Ukraine's Presidential Commission for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation officer.[18]
Maltreatment
According to witness testimonies obtained by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, some of the children have experienced poor living conditions, inadequate care, and verbal abuse while living under the custody of the Russian state.[8] Some returned children have attested to harsh punishments and restrictive living conditions while in Russia.[13] The Ukrainian government has claimed that some children have experienced sexual exploitation after being forcibly transferred to Russia.[47] Children detained in summer camps have testified to frequent punishment, bullying by peers, and pressure to sing the Russian anthem.[48]
Abducted children are offered a three month-long rehabilitation with mental health care teams upon returning to Ukraine.[13]
Russian policies
Adoptions
Russian law prohibits adoptions of children who are citizens of other countries by Russian citizens without the consent of the child's home country. In May 2022, Vladimir Putin signed a decree[1] facilitating the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian children to enable their permanent adoption into Russian families - this change represents a legal obstacle to future reunification of the abducted children with their Ukrainian families[1][32] or their repatriation to Ukraine.[32] Orphanages, group homes, and social service agencies are also allowed to file for adoption of abducted children, thus initiating their naturalisation.[44]
The Russian government created a register of Russian families that may adopt Ukrainian children, and a hotline for Russian families seeking to adopt Ukrainian children from Donbas. Adoptive families receive a cash payment for each adopted Ukrainian child that is granted Russian citizenship.[1] Lvova-Belova suggested the creation of a database of Ukrainian (ostensible) orphans to improve matching of these children with prospective adoptive families in occupied Ukraine or Russia, and expressed a wish to systematise the adoption process.[32]
BBC news reported that Sergey Mironov, a Putin ally, had illegally adopted a toddler from a children's home in Ukraine.[49]
Russification and re-education
According to The New York Times, "Russian officials ... made clear that their goal is to replace any childhood attachment to home with a love for Russia".[14] Upon arriving in Russia, the children are placed in homes and subjected to re-education.[50] During the occupation of Novopskov, occupation authorities threatened to deprive parents of parental rights if their child did not attend a school with a Russian curriculum.[51]
In 2022, the Russian government established a large-scale system of at least 43 children's camps in Russia and Crimea (most of which previously served as children's summer resorts) the main purpose of which appears to be "integrating children from Ukraine into the Russian government's vision of national culture, history, and society", according to a report by Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.[19] Some children have been placed in summer camps in Belarus that are run by Belarusian state-owned corporations by virtue of a decree issued by the Russo-Belarusian Union State.[52] Children in such camps have been subjected to Russification, Russian state propaganda, and military education (including firearm training). Children have also been provided with formal education in accordance with Russia's educational standards (either at the camps or at local schools) in an effort to steer them towards attending university in Russia.[19]
Parents in Russian-occupied areas are encouraged or coerced to send their children to these camps (described to them as children's "summer camps") for a respite from the war, with the children subsequently subject to indoctrination during their stay and sometimes not returned to the parents as promised. Orphans, children from Ukrainian state institutions, and children who have become separated from their legal guardians due to the conflict are also sent to these camps before their eventual adoption and/or placement in foster care in Russia. At least 6,000 Ukrainian children have attended such camps; analysis of information from public accounts and satellite imagery has indicated the number of children housed in such camps to be far higher.[19]
All levels of the Russian government - federal, regional, and local - are involved in the operation of the camps, and their operation is supported by Russian occupation authorities and proxies, and by members of Russia's civil society and private sector. Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova advocated for the camps.[19]
Using children for propaganda
The Russian state begun using abducted Ukrainian children for propaganda purposes during the War in Donbas.[44] The domestic narrative of the Russian state is that abandoned children are rescued from the ravages of war by the magnanimous Russian state.[12][14][42] The forced transfer of Ukrainian children forms part of a broader propaganda strategy by Vladimir Putin attempting to portray Ukraine as part of the Russian nation, justify the invasion,[14] and bolster support for the war.[42] Abducted children were paraded at a government pro-war rally marking the first anniversary of the invasion, where they were shown thanking Russian soldiers for "saving them".[53] The Russian state has carefully crafted the portrayal of the forced transfers of children to the Russian public. Russian state television has broadcast footage of Russian officials handing out teddy bears to newly arrived abducted children, and Russian officials in Donetsk have invited reporters to events where gifts were handed out to abducted children.[14]
Preventing repatriation and family reunification
Many parents wish to reunite with their children (some do not, either due to financial reasons or previous estrangement). Russian authorities do not make any attempt to contact parents to notify them that their children are in the custody of the Russian state[14] and have refused to cooperate with the Ukrainian government and international organisations in tracking the children.[48] Likewise, they do not release any information regarding the identities of the transferred children, making it difficult for Ukrainian and international authorities to locate and identify the children.[12] The first and last names of the abducted children are also changed, making it even more difficult to track down and identify the children.[54][55] Ukraine's ombudsman on children's rights has said the process of tracking down abducted children is especially difficult with young children that may not remember where they are from.[15] Even in cases where parents have successfully tracked down their children and formally applied to the Russian authorities to be reunited with them, Russian officials have attempted to pressure or persuade the parents and children to consent to transfer, promising creature comforts and a better life. In cases where parents (or other legal guardian) and children are unable to establish contact or parents are unable or unwilling to personally come collect the children, children are deported to Russia even if they personally express a desire to remain in Ukraine.[14] Abducted children have been lied to by Russian officials about their parents having abandoned them.[1][41]
Funding
For the year of 2024, according to an investigation published in February 2024 by a coalition of journals including VSquare, Delfi, Expressen and Paper Trail Media, Lvova-Belova was scheduled to be paid from the Russian Federation budget the equivalent of €420,000 "for the removal of children from the Special Military Occupation Zone".[56]
Belarusian involvement
The Belarusian state and state-affiliated organisations have actively participated in the forced transfers of Ukrainian children. Ukrainian children have been deported to Belarus where they are held in recreational camps. The National Anti-Crisis Management Group, a Belarusian organisation headed by Belarusian opposition figure Pavel Latushka, used open-source information to report in August 2023 that at least 2,100 Ukrainian children had been transferred to Belarus.[57] According to Latushka, they were being held in summer camps administered by state-owned corporations. He also said that to state documents showed the transfers are being conducted under the authority of the Union State.[58] The transfers of Ukrainian children have been shown on Belarusian state television. There are indications of re-education efforts by the Belarusian state. Much of the information about the child abductions has come from their parents; children that have been deported to Belarus were abducted from regions of Ukraine which were still under Russian occupation as of August 2023, impeding investigations.[57]
According to international humanitarian law, children in war zones should be evacuated to neutral third countries whenever possible; Belarus lent its territory to be used as a staging ground for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[57]
In a July 2023 interview with the Belarusian state TV channel Belarus-1, Dzmitry Shautsou, the head of the Belarus Red Cross, clad in military clothing embellished with the Z symbol, admitted to the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas to Belarus for “health improvement” reasons, saying that it would continue to do so. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies distanced itself from his statements while expressing "grave concern", demanded a halt to the practice, and launched an investigation by its investigative committee.[59][60]
Belarusian president Lukashenko has dismissed concerns regarding the transfers, suggesting that Ukrainian children were instead being trafficked to Western countries for organ harvesting.[57]
In February 2024, the European Union blacklisted Shautsou, as well as several other persons and organizations from Belarus for their involvement in the Ukrainian child abductions.[61] The United States, Ukraine and Australia have also imposed sanctions in relation to the forced deportations.[62][63][64][65]
Sanctions
Russian children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova has been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.[1]
Reactions
Russia
Lvova-Belova has claimed that the Russian state is entirely willing to reunite the children with their parents if they come forward.[44]
On 17 June 2023, Vladimir Putin rejected the request of a peace delegation from Africa to return the children back home, saying that "We moved them out of the conflict zone, saving their lives and health."[71]
Ukraine
Ukrainian authorities have claimed Putin's decree to be a way to "legalize the abduction of children from the territory of Ukraine". They have maintained this "grossly violate[s]" the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.[23]
The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine also believes that the actions may qualify as a forcible transfer of children from one human group to another. In a statement: "The most serious international crimes against children committed by Russian high-ranking officials and servicemen in Ukraine will be investigated, and the perpetrators will be prosecuted. Russia will not be able to avoid the strictest accountability."[23]
By 31 May 2023, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Ukrainian Service reported that
Zelenskiy said 371 deported Ukraine children have been returned by Russia.[72] More than 19,000 children have been deported to Russia.[73]
United Nations
UNICEF Emergency Programs Director Manuel Fontaine told CBS News that UNICEF was "looking into how we can track or help on that", though stating they did not have ability to investigate at the moment.[25]
Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced on 15 June 2022 that her agency had started an investigation into allegations of children forcibly deported from Ukraine to the Russian Federation.[74]
On 15 March 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report declaring these forced transfers of children are illegal and a war crime. It broadly gave three categories of deported children: those who lost contact with their parents due to the Russian invasion, those who were separated when their parents were sent to a Russian filtration camp, and those who were in institutions. The report concluded: