Madonna intervenes to try and help save 20,000 missing Ukrainian children

Russia denounced the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable”. The Kremlin says it is protecting the children from war, but they also acknowledge they are seeking to re-educate the children and turn them into loyal Russians.

Kyiv estimates at least 19,500 Ukrainian children have been forcibly displaced from their homes and deported to Russia and Russian-occupied territories since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Save Ukraine, a charity devoted to their return, says just 373 children are back in Ukraine, including 88 orphans, many showing signs of trauma. The Qatari government acted as a mediator with Moscow for most of them.

The exact figure of children taken is unclear; where they are is mostly unknown. Most of them were taken from their homes and funnelled through summer camps in and around Crimea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described Russia’s actions as akin to genocide.

“We are trying to get children back home, but time goes by. What will happen to them?” Zelensky said recently. “Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken.”

‘[Russia bases] their strategy on deception, indoctrination of children, and genocide of the Ukrainian nation.’

Mykola Kuleba, founder of the charity Save Ukraine

Save Ukraine founder Mykola Kuleba told an event in Lucerne, close to the mountain resort where world leaders were gathering, that Russia was “stealing our future”.

“They base their strategy on deception, indoctrination of children, and genocide of the Ukrainian nation,” Kuleba said.

He shared the story of an eight-year-old girl who was sent to a Russian camp he said was designed to eradicate her Ukrainian identity.

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“Children are forbidden to speak Ukrainian or display any Ukrainian symbols. Children are severely punished if they resist singing the Russian anthem,” he said.

Kuleba said the names and dates of birth of children were also routinely changed by Russian authorities, calling for an increased international effort to gather information about the abducted children and return them home.

An investigation by the Financial Times last week found four children who were abducted from state care homes and separated from their guardians across parts of south-east Ukraine that fell under the control of Russia’s invading army in 2022.

Using facial recognition tools, public records, and interviews with family members of the abducted children, the investigation identified four Ukrainian children aged eight to 15 on the Russian government-linked adoption website usynovite.ru.

One of the children had a new Russian name and a different age than the one listed on their Ukrainian document, and another had a Russianised version of their name. Nothing indicated that they were from Ukraine.

The “Peace Formula Philosophy” that Ukraine had proposed for discussion at Burgenstock Resort this weekend included provisions on the release of prisoners and deportees, and accountability for “serious crimes under international law” through “appropriate, fair and independent investigations and prosecutions”.

Outside the summit some 250 people, many of them relatives of Ukrainian soldiers, waved banners and shouted slogans to draw attention to the fate of troops taken prisoner by Russia. Many do not know if their loved ones have been killed or taken.

In addition to the children deported to Russia, about 8000 people, both civilians and soldiers, are also in Russian hands. Ukrainian authorities are compiling a comprehensive record of those who have disappeared in occupied territory, but estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

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Since 2014, the International Commission on Missing Persons, a treaty-based intergovernmental organisation with headquarters in The Hague, has helped Ukraine to build a system that can reliably account for large numbers of missing persons. The authorities have committed themselves to a strategy that is predicated on delivering truth and justice to victims.

Kathryne Bomberger, the organisation’s director general, said they were working with Ukrainian government institutions and civil society representatives to examine the institutional and legislative provisions that would be required to sustain an effective missing persons process over the long term.

“The Ukrainian authorities have rightly placed this issue at the centre of efforts to restore peace,” she said. “Lasting peace must be based on truth and justice, and these will only be secured if systematic steps are taken to account for those who have gone missing as a result of the conflict.”