The Russian deportation of Ukrainian children

The forced deportation of Ukrainian children from territories under Russian occupation represents one of the most grievous humanitarian crimes of the war. Beneath the rhetoric of “evacuation” and “protection”, Russia has orchestrated a systematic policy of child abduction, designed both to erase Ukrainian identity and to legitimise the annexation of occupied lands through the manipulation of their youngest citizens.

Origins of the Deportations

When Russian troops seized parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea, they encountered a civilian population that could not easily be subdued by propaganda alone. Beginning in 2022, Russian officials initiated the transfer of children from orphanages, schools, and families under the pretext of “humanitarian relocation” from war zones. In practice, many of these children were taken without parental consent, or after their parents had been killed, imprisoned, or lost contact due to military operations.

State-sponsored organisations such as “Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner” and affiliated charities, including those led by Maria Lvova-Belova, oversaw these removals. Children were placed in temporary camps in Crimea, Krasnodar Krai, and further into Russia’s interior—often as far as Siberia or the Far East. In an eery replication of Stalin's attempts to depopulate Ukraine, they were subjected to “re-education” programmes that sought to replace their Ukrainian identity with Russian patriotism, teaching them to sing Russian anthems and deny their homeland.

Assimilation and Forced Adoption

Once inside Russia, many of the deported children were absorbed into the bureaucracy of the state. Guardianship and adoption processes were accelerated under decrees by President Vladimir Putin, allowing Russian families to adopt Ukrainian children with minimal documentation. These adoptions were frequently accompanied by the deliberate falsification of personal records, including the issuance of Russian passports and the erasure of Ukrainian birth certificates.

The re-identification of these children serves several political purposes. It enables Moscow to claim that the people of the occupied territories are becoming “Russian” and undermines Ukraine’s demographic and familial fabric. It also allows the Kremlin to present the operation as a charitable rescue mission for “abandoned” children, thereby masking the coercive nature of their displacement.

International Condemnation and Legal Implications

The scale and intent of these actions have drawn intense international condemnation. The United Nations, the Council of Europe and numerous human rights organisations have described the deportations as a form of ethnic cleansing. In March 2023 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for both Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova on charges of war crimes relating to the unlawful deportation and transfer of children.

The Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbids an occupying power from transferring or deporting civilians from occupied territory. The deliberate indoctrination and adoption of such children may further constitute acts of genocide under Article II(e) of the 1948 Genocide Convention: “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The Russian Federation’s insistence that these relocations are voluntary cannot withstand scrutiny in light of extensive documentation of coercion, deception and violence.

The Ukrainian Response

Ukraine has created dedicated agencies to trace and recover the abducted minors, including the “Children of War” portal and the National Information Bureau. Kyiv estimates that more than 20,000 children have been deported since the full-scale invasion began, although the real number may be much higher. Fewer than 500 have been successfully returned through complex diplomatic efforts involving intermediaries such as Qatar, Turkey and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Repatriation is fraught with difficulty. Russian authorities often hide the children’s locations or claim they have been legally adopted. Some children, subjected to prolonged indoctrination, no longer recognise their Ukrainian identity or resist returning. Each recovery requires negotiation, psychological rehabilitation, and often legal intervention across borders.

The Psychological and Cultural Toll

The personal suffering of these children defies statistics. Many are traumatised by loss, displacement, and coercive assimilation. Their sense of belonging is fractured: their language, culture, and even their names altered to conform to Russian norms. Some are placed in military cadet schools or patriotic camps, where they are trained to view Ukraine as an enemy. Others, particularly teenagers, have been used in propaganda videos depicting their supposed gratitude to Russia for “rescue”.

The loss reverberates beyond individual victims. Each abducted child represents a rupture in Ukraine’s social continuity, a severed lineage, and an attempt to erase a nation’s future. The systematic nature of the programme evokes echoes of historical precedents: Nazi Germany’s abduction of Polish and Czech children for Germanisation, Stalin’s mass deportations of ethnic minorities, and other totalitarian efforts to destroy national identity by remoulding youth.

Prospects for Justice

Restoring these children to their families is as much a moral imperative as a legal one. While international courts may take years to deliver judgments, Ukraine and her allies are gathering detailed evidence, including testimonies, adoption records and intercepted communications. The documentation of each case not only lays the groundwork for accountability but also symbolises defiance against the attempt to erase a generation.

In the long term, the reintegration of returned children will require careful psychological support and community healing. Ukraine will face the challenge of reconciling national justice with the human complexity of victims who may feel torn between two identities. Yet the effort to bring them home affirms a broader principle: that even in war, the innocence of children must remain inviolate.

The deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia is not an isolated humanitarian tragedy but a deliberate strategy of cultural conquest. It seeks to destroy Ukraine’s future by severing her youngest citizens from their language, land, and lineage. However each child who returns home—carrying the memories of loss but also the resilience of survival—embodies the endurance of the Ukrainian nation. In that endurance lies a moral victory that no occupying power can erase.