As negotiations continue between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing for the return of thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children.
Earlier this month in Istanbul, Russia acknowledged deporting children from eastern Ukraine.
U.S. senators have introduced a bipartisan resolution calling for the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. President Trump should do more to help bring these kids home.
Vladimir Putin’s goal in Ukraine isn’t just to seize territory. His war is against Ukrainian identity itself — a mission in keeping with centuries of Russian efforts to suppress Ukrainian culture.
As part of this agenda, Russia has abducted more than 19,500 children from occupied Ukrainian territory. And that’s just the number of confirmed cases. The true number is likely much higher. In 2023, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, boasted that Moscow had taken 700,000 Ukrainian children.
That same year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova for unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, which is a war crime.
According to Daria Gerasymchuk, the Ukrainian ombudsman for children’s rights, child abduction takes multiple forms. Sometimes, parents are arrested or even killed, and their children are taken in their absence. Some kids have been separated from their relatives.
In other cases, parents living in difficult conditions under Russian occupation are convinced to send their children to camps in Russia, believing they will be safer. Once there, however, the children are taken away to other locations without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Most never return home. Many are adopted by Russian families.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) emphasized that Putin has kidnapped children to “Russify them in an attempt to destroy their cultural identity and heritage.” Those who have returned report that they were subjected to intense brainwashing. They are forced to wear Russian military symbols and participate in militaristic, anti-Ukrainian activities. Russian teachers are told that their goal is to “form a Russian identity in the rising generation” from the occupied Ukrainian regions.
Children still residing in those regions face similar treatment. Moscow hopes this will solidify its control over the occupied territories.
Not only is Russia attempting to eradicate Ukrainian identity — it is literally weaponizing Ukrainian children to support its war effort. According to Ukrainian authorities, there are cases “on a daily basis” in which Russian intelligence has lured minors, often recruited via social media, into carrying out sabotage operations.
Lithuania blamed the Russian military intelligence service for being behind an arson attack after Russia recruited a teenage Ukrainian to burn down an IKEA store. He was promised a BMW and $11,000 in cash.
The return of Ukrainian children is one of Kyiv’s key demands in peace talks. The Ukrainians want all illegally displaced children, along with prisoners of war, returned to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire. American officials have similarly suggested that children’s repatriation should be part of a potential peace deal.
Washington should pressure Russia to the abducted children to Ukraine by using sticks, such as tougher sanctions, to get Putin to agree.
Moscow’s strategy of forcefully turning the next generation into Russian “patriots” who stand against Ukrainian independence will guarantee a continuation of violence and unrest. Putin sees children as part of his war machine. By eroding their identity, instilling them with “patriotic” Russian values and beliefs, and even recruiting them to commit violence, he is treating innocent humans as pawns and weapons, destroying any semblance of the lives they left behind.
Ivana Stradner is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.