Russia’s abduction and deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children could amount to the crime of genocide, according to the special rapporteur for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly.

“Yes, I think we could speak about genocide,” Carina Odebrink, the special rapporteur, said in a recent interview with Ukrinform.

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Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces have systematically abducted Ukrainian children, primarily in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, and taken them to Russia, where they undergo “re-education,” or indoctrination.

It is unclear exactly how many children have been forcibly deported, many of whom were orphaned in the war, primarily because Russia is not sharing details on who it has taken or where they have gone.

Ukraine’s government has confirmed that at least around 20,000 children have been kidnapped, though the total could be much higher, Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

Ukrainian children in the Russian-occupied territories are in jeopardy of facing the same fate without intervention, according to Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

The Ukrainian government has launched the Bring Kids Back UA fund to raise awareness and support internationally. Dozens of countries have joined the coalition to support the mediating efforts to get the children back.

Yermak said Russia proposed exchanging the children for Russian prisoners of war captured in battle, which the Ukrainians flatly refused.

More than 1,000 deported Ukrainian children were returned last week, and upon their return, they were treated by psychologists to work through the trauma.

In one instance, a boy who was safely returned previously, told officials that his mother had been killed in the war, he was then deported, and while in Russia, he was encouraged to join the Russian military to fight against his own countrymen, according to the Zelensky adviser.

“The children whom we [have gotten] back with the help of some partners, what they described, it’s really terrible,” Yermak said. “It’s not just torture, they try to change their absolute mentality, the identity” of an entire generation of Ukrainians.

The OSCE released a report at the end of June on the deportations and it concluded that the “obvious intent and scale of the crimes prove that the Russian Federation does not only seek to annex Ukrainian territory, but to erase a generation of Ukrainians in order to argue and demonstrate to the world that the territories it has occupied from Ukraine are now irreversibly Russian.”

President Donald Trump and Zelensky have discussed the plight of the deported children during their conversations. While Trump has shown support for their return, the U.S. State Department cut funding for a Yale University program that had been tracking the deportations.

Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab concluded by December 2024 that Putin and other senior officials “intentionally and directly authorized” a “systematic program of coerced adoption and fostering.”

Bipartisan groups of legislators in the House and Senate introduced resolutions in both chambers on June 30 condemning Russia’s abduction of children and calling for their return.

The Russian commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, has claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been “relocated” to Russia, while her Ukrainian counterpart, Daria Herasymchuk, estimates the true number could be between 200,000-300,000.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged crimes related to the deportations.

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Odebrink said she firmly believes it is possible that Putin would be tried at The Hague for crimes related to the war.

“The fact that the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Putin and the children’s ombudsperson is incredibly important, and we must stand by,” she added. “If we don’t, we risk silently accepting what is happening.”