Like millions of other Ukrainians, Marharyta Kosenkova fled the war-torn country in 2022, hoping to give her young daughter a safer, more stable life. Unlike many, she took the girl across borders — ending up in Canada — without the father’s permission.

Kosenkova violated an international abduction treaty when she did so, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled recently in an intriguing child-custody case. But Justice Ross Macfarlane said the girl can nevertheless stay in Windsor, Ont., in part because of the danger she’d face if returned to her father in Ukraine.