A former Ukrainian intelligence officer now independently tracking these listings told The Telegraph he had identified some 35,000 potential adoption adverts that match this description.
Officials and charity workers are using sophisticated software to scrape Russian adoption databases, image recognition tools and public records to confirm these findings.
Bringing the children home is considered a race against time. With many of them abducted before their first birthday, they will have no recollection of their parents or Ukrainian heritage. Even more urgently, as they grow up it becomes harder to identify them.
‘Time is on Russia’s side’
“Time is playing in Russia’s favour,” Daria Zarivna, a Ukrainian presidential aide and head of Bring Kids Back UA, said.
“That means the longer we drag [our feet], and play to Russia’s demands, the harder it will be to recognise these children later.”
There are international efforts aimed at bringing Ukrainian children home. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia have acted as intermediaries between the Ukrainian and Russian governments on the issue.
The Gulf states have also funded independent trips by Ukrainian parents, who have travelled through checkpoints between Ukrainian and Russian-held territories to Russia to reunite with their children.
These efforts have been slow, with around 400 children being returned since efforts began.
Children taken in 2014
It is a challenge that will continue to plague Ukraine long after its war against the Russian invasion ends.
Ms Lambert said: “Even if the war stopped tomorrow, there would be work for the next 10 years, because these children need to be found, these children need to be rehabilitated and reintegrated.
“For some, I can’t even say reintegrated, because we are not talking about children who have disappeared from 2022... we are also trying to return the children who were taken from 2014 [Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine], who need to be completely integrated into Ukraine.”