Return of Ukrainian children forcefully deported to Russia is non-negotiable, Kyiv says

While most Europeans are travelling home to spend Easter break with their families, up to 20,000 Ukrainian children remain in Russia after being illegally deported from Ukraine, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister told Euronews.

“This is a time when people celebrate Easter with their loved ones in the family. And those kids are left without their families. Many of them do not even remember already their parents because Russia erases their identity,” Mariana Betsa said.

"Ukrainian children are non-negotiable," and any peace talks and negotiations should include "unconditional return of each and every child back home to Ukraine," Betsa insisted.

Ukraine has been able to verify Russia’s deportation of 19,546 children to date. These are the children for whom detailed information has been collected — their place of residence in Ukraine and their territorial location in Russia are known. 

The actual figure is likely to be much higher.

Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab placed the number of deported Ukrainian children closer to 35,000. Moscow claimed that the number could be as high as 700,000.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank (ISW) insists that the true number of deported children is near-impossible to verify, "but the implication remains the same — Russia has stolen tens, potentially hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children with the explicit intent of eradicating their Ukrainian identities and turning them into Russians." 

Moreover, the ISW stealing the children was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s priorities, referring to the revelations of Ukrainian human rights activists.

They uncovered Kremlin documents dated 18 February 2022, which laid out plans to remove Ukrainian children from orphanages in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions and bring them to Russia under the guise of “humanitarian evacuations”.

These documents revealed that Russia planned to target vulnerable Ukrainian children, especially those without parental care, before the full-scale invasion had even begun.

“In the subsequent three years, Russia has embarked on a Kremlin-directed, deeply institutionalised project to abduct Ukrainian children and forcibly turn them into the next generation of Russians.”

Betsa says 1.6 million Ukrainian children still remain in the temporarily occupied territories at this time.

What is happening to the deported Ukrainian children now?

Russia is deliberately erasing the identity of the illegally deported children, according to Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister.

Betsa told Euronews that it is challenging to trace and identify these children because their names and IDs are being changed, especially when it comes to younger kids, who have been forced into adoption in Russia.

With the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the first intentional deportation of Ukrainian children, Putin signed a decree for a simplified procedure for the acquisition of Russian citizenship for Ukrainian “children left without parental care and incapacitated persons”.

This amounts to a legalisation of the process of deporting Ukrainian children and forcibly granting them Russian citizenship.

Russia uses the children as "an instrument of its aggressive policy towards Ukraine," Betsa says.“What Russia does is it weaponises the Ukrainian children,” she added.

Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has confirmed that Russia is using at least 43 children’s camps throughout the country to house deported children, at least 32 of which are explicitly “re-education” facilities.

Russia uses these camps to indoctrinate Ukrainian children, "punishing them for their Ukrainian identities and forcibly instilling pro-Russian sentiment through carefully curated Kremlin-approved curricula and 'military-patriotic' training courses."

Bringing the deported children back, Kyiv’s ‘red line’ for any deal

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister reiterated in the interview with Euronews that there is no just peace without the return of the prisoners of war, illegally detained persons and without the return of each and every child.

“These are red lines for Ukraine. Every child should be unconditionally returned back home to Ukraine," Betsa said.

Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the matter was "a major priority for Kyiv in recent ceasefire negotiations with the United States in Saudi Arabia."

In a statement issued following talks with Ukraine, the US said it remains "committed" to returning forcibly kidnapped Ukrainian children, as well as exchanging prisoners of war and releasing civilian detainees.

However, the Trump administration cut funding for Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which had investigated and detailed the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Under the 2022 contract with the lab, the US government was responsible for its database. When the government cut off its support, the lab’s team members lost access to the irreplaceable data they had collected, including the evidence of Russia’s war crimes.

The lab shared some of this evidence with European authorities and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued arrest warrants for Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for forcibly deporting Ukrainian children.

Responding to pressure from Congress members, the Trump administration later restored the Lab’s funding for about six weeks to ensure the proper transfer of the critical data on the children to the appropriate authorities.

Betsa insists that Ukraine raises the issue of forcefully deported at each and every negotiation, "bilateral, multilateral, within international organisations, UN, Council of Europe, everywhere, also including in our bilateral talks with the US."

“These are red lines for Ukraine. Every child should be unconditionally returned back home to Ukraine.”