As President Donald Trump rushes to "make a deal" with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end Russia's war against Ukraine, it's on us, the American people, to make sure Ukraine gets a good deal.
President Trump will not achieve a good deal unless he ensures that these kids come home.
Why it matters:
Children are being forced to renounce their Ukrainian identity and accept Russian citizenship. They are being subjected to propaganda-based education, where they study falsified history and sing Russian anthems and praises to Putin. In occupied territories, Ukrainian books are being replaced with Russian materials, cementing cultural erasure and an end to Ukrainian identity. Ukrainian language, songs, and symbols are being brutally suppressed.
Russia has fast-tracked the adoption of Ukrainian children, often bypassing international safeguards. Weak oversight and corruption within the Russian adoption system raise concerns that these children could get placed in unsafe homes, disappear into trafficking networks, or face further exploitation. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab found that many Ukrainian children’s whereabouts become unknown after placement in Russian families.
Children who come from families belonging to "subversive" religious groups, especially evangelical Christians and Catholics are especially targeted for abduction. Russian authorities have been known to remove children from families who refuse to adopt religious practices that do not challenge the occupation. This is a blatant violation of religious freedom.
Ukrainian boys as young as 12 years old are sent to Russian military academies. They are trained to become future Russian soldiers indoctrinated to fight against their homeland. Teens often receive Russian passports and draft orders at the same time and are quickly sent to the frontlines. This practice violates international law and constitutes child soldier recruitment.
The Genocide Convention says that “transferring children from one group to another” constitutes a marker of genocide. The UN has recognized Russian actions of transferring children a war crime. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova were issued an arrest warrant for the crime of deportation by the International Criminal Court.
The Statistics:
Ukraine's Bring Kids Back initiative has verified at least 19,546 cases of Russia forcibly transferring Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus, and elsewhere.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Russian wartime policy that bars independent researchers the ability to investigate these allegations means an exact number is hard to come by.
Credible estimates put the number of captive Ukrainian children around 200,000.
Independent NGOs like Save Ukraine and others have rescued 1,240 children from Russian captivity. Meanwhile, as many as 1.6 million children lived in territory occupied by Russia since their full-scale invasion in 2022. The occupation leaves these children and their families vulnerable to abduction and coercion. Scroll the infographic to get a sense of the scale of this crisis.
Only an intervention of the United States and Ukraine's Western allies can free all of these kids.
"We were completely labeled as children of the Russian Federation. They simply erased our identity as Ukrainians — citizens who have lived in Ukraine all our lives, although now in its militarily occupied part."
What you can do:
The most effective way to save these children from Russian captivity is by pressuring the American government to make a deal that ensures their release.
Fill out the form to contact your Senator or Member of Congress to pressure the Trump administration to make a good deal.
