The Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine’s Children
On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, based on their alleged war crimes of unlawful transfer and unlawful deportation of Ukraine’s children.
Russia’s propaganda machine reacted swiftly to the ICC’s decision, with threats of nuclear strikes, false claims about Western “experiments on children ” and anti-Russian “hysteria ,” calls for the arrest of ICC judges, and claims that Ukraine’s children were taken away “for their safety .” Russia’s Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev threatened The Hague with a hypersonic missile and compared the warrants to toilet paper . Kremlin propagandists Vladimir Solovyov and Margarita Simonyan claimed that nuclear strikes await any country daring enough to arrest Putin. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the “enlightened West” of “criminalizing the rescue of children” while the same Western countries are “experimenting on kids with gender reassignments.” Separately, Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that “the West is hysterical” and any “invectives” against Putin will be seen as aggression against Russia, adding, “Yankees, hands off Putin!” Similarly, Russia’s Embassy in Washington called “U.S. validation” of the warrants “reminiscent of sluggish schizophrenia ” and pointed to “U.S. atrocities” elsewhere. Several Russian senators proposed issuing arrest warrants for the ICC judges and “liquidating ” the International Criminal Court. This report examines the context of the ICC charges and Russia’s efforts to manipulate information and deflect blame about the alleged war crimes.
Since February 24, 2022, when the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, attempting to topple the democratically elected government in Kyiv, members of Russia’s forces committed numerous internationally documented war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, including against many of Ukraine’s children. On June 5, 2023, the Secretary General of the United Nations added Russia’s armed forces and affiliated armed groups to the list of parties that have committed “grave violations affecting children in situations of armed conflict” for reportedly killing and maiming hundreds of Ukraine’s children, using them as human shields, and attacking schools and hospitals.
The Kremlin appears determined to erase Ukraine’s existence as a state by attempting to rob it of its future. Mounting evidence shows Russia uses forcible relocation, re-education, and, in some cases, adoption of Ukraine’s children as key components of its systematic efforts to suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture. The Ukrainian government estimates that Russian authorities have “deported and/or forcibly displaced ” 19,553 children from their homes, including movements into so-called “summer camps” in Russia-occupied areas and sometimes into Russia itself, even to isolated regions in Russia’s Far East. As of August 1, 2023, Ukraine had successfully returned 395 children.
Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, has publicly said that more than 700,000 children from Ukraine are now in Russia, claiming that the majority were accompanied by guardians and portraying it as a “humanitarian effort.” The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL), a partner in the State Department-supported Conflict Observatory, reported that Russia has “systematically relocated at least 6,000 children from Ukraine to a network of re-education and adoption facilities in Russia-occupied Crimea and mainland Russia” since the full-scale invasion began. Yale HRL’s findings “indicate the majority of camps have engaged in pro-Russia re-education efforts, and some camps have provided military training to children.” The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and constitutes an internationally recognized war crime .
To deflect responsibility, Russia disseminates disinformation and propaganda attempting to distort its abuses as “humanitarian” gestures. Russia also conducts disinformation and propaganda-filled activities aimed at brainwashing children in Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine or children from Ukraine it deports to Russia into believing that the Kremlin is saving them from a “Nazi regime in Kyiv.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the “purpose of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make deportees forget about Ukraine and not be able to return.”
Accountability is imperative. This is why the United States is fully supporting efforts by Ukrainian and international authorities to collect, document, and preserve all evidence of atrocities, so Russia’s disinformation and propaganda are not the only records of what has happened to Ukraine’s children.
“They Said My Mother Didn’t Need Me:” the Mechanics of Russia’s Unlawful Transfer, Deportation, and Adoption of Ukraine’s Children
According to Yale HRL, Russia started to transfer children from the parts of Ukraine it controlled or occupied to Russia shortly before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Russia has used a variety of methods to transfer children from Ukraine. Three of these methods include: 1) Russian and the Russia-installed authorities in the occupied areas of Ukraine have unlawfully deported children during so-called “filtration” operations; 2) Russian and the Russia-installed authorities in the occupied areas of Ukraine have taken them from Ukraine’s state institutions; and 3) Russian and the Russia-installed authorities in the occupied areas of Ukraine brought them to supposed recreation camps in Crimea and Russia.
Filtration
According to reports by Amnesty International and Ukrainska Pravda , some children are separated from their parents during Russia’s “filtration ” operations. As part of the “filtration” process, Russia detains Ukrainian civilians to evaluate them for their perceived threat to Russia’s occupation. These individuals face one of three fates after undergoing filtration, which include being issued documentation and remaining in Russian-occupied Ukraine, being forcefully deported to Russia, or being detained in prisons in eastern Ukraine or Russia. Passing through the “filtration” process, children and parents may be separated and interrogated separately. Sometimes children are subjected to questioning and searches without the agreement or presence of their parents or guardians.
Sashko, a 12-year-old boy from Mariupol, said Russian soldiers transferred him and his mother to a “filtration” facility in Bezimenne, a village in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region. His mother was taken for questioning, and he has not seen her since. “They [Russian soldiers] didn’t let me say goodbye to my mother… They said my mother didn’t need me, that I would be sent to a children’s home and then to a foster family,” said Sashko. Sashko spent two months at a “trauma center” in Russia-occupied Donetsk before he managed to contact his grandmother Lyudmyla, who then travelled to Donetsk to bring Sashko home. Other children from Mariupol, who were separated from their parents during “filtration” operations, reportedly ended up in Moscow and were undergoing preparations for being adopted by families in Russia.
Transfer/Deportation from Institutions
Russia also deports children living in Ukraine’s care facilities. Lvova-Belova claimed these children do not have parents or guardians, but the Associated Press found Russia has “deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they were not wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda, and given them Russian families and citizenship.” Timofey Chmel, 17, said the authorities in Donetsk tried to lure him into going to Moscow, promising “gadgets and clothes” and a “relaxing” life. “If your parents abandoned you, they do not need you. We will help you,” they told him. Timofey refused.
Not all children residing in Ukraine’s state institutions are “orphans.” They may include children from families facing difficult circumstances or children whose parents were killed by Russia’s bombardments but who may still have other relatives or legal guardians. According to the New York Times , “children in government homes [in Ukraine] are often labeled orphans, but most do have families. Parents struggling with illness, substance abuse or financial hardships, including those caring for children with complex medical situations or children with disabilities, can place their children — temporarily or permanently — in Ukraine’s state-run institutions.” Russia then “evacuates” purported orphans under the pretext of “safety concerns” or for “medical care,” sends them to hospitals or “family centers” in Russia-occupied areas, and then deports them for “fostering or adoption ” in Russia, where some of them are coerced into receiving Russian citizenship . Olga Druzhinina, from the Siberian city of Salekhard, told journalists that she adopted four children from the Russia-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk. “Our family is like a small Russia … Russia took in four territories, and the Druzhinin family took in four children,” Ms. Druzhinina said . According to Yale HRL , in summer 2022 Lvova-Belova said that 350 “orphans” from Ukraine had been adopted and “over a thousand” were in line for adoption. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that “in none of the situations which the Commission has examined, transfers of children appear to have satisfied the requirements set forth by international humanitarian law. The transfers were not justified by safety or medical reasons.”
Transfer to “Summer Camps”
Russia-installed “authorities” and Russian Federation soldiers in the occupied territories of Ukraine also recruit children from Ukraine to travel to so-called “recreational camps” in occupied Crimea or inside Russia. Yale HRL identified more than 6,000 children from Ukraine who have been held in at least 43 such facilities. Eleven camps that Yale HRL identified are located more than 500 miles from Ukraine’s border with Russia, including two in Siberia and one in Russia’s Far East. According to Yale HRL, the consent from parents for their children to attend the camps is “collected under duress and routinely violated.” AP said Russian officials tried to deceive the children from Ukraine into believing that they “weren’t wanted by their parents.” According to Yale HRL, parents report being lied to about the “term of stay and procedures for reuniting with their children.” In some cases, camp organizers sent the children to the camps despite their parents’ refusal. Around 10 percent of the camps suspended the children’s planned return to Ukraine and did not provide parents with information about their child’s status and location, according to the same report. Children from two of the camps have since been placed with foster families in Russia. This transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children is “centrally coordinated ” by Russia’s federal, regional, and local government officials, including propagating the “recreational camps” program in Russia and the Russia-occupied regions of Ukraine.
As noted in the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, the Department of State is deeply concerned by Russia’s forcible relocation of Ukraine’s children to the Russian Federation. These children are highly vulnerable to human trafficking; and if they are being exploited for use in forced labor or commercial sex, this would constitute human trafficking. Because information about the well-being and whereabouts of these children and their families is limited, including access by humanitarian organizations, there is not currently enough data to know whether these children are being exploited in ways that amount to human trafficking.
Using Ukraine’s Children as a Propaganda Tool, Warping Humanitarianism
Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem attempts to falsely portray the Kremlin’s forcible relocation, re-education, and adoption of children from Ukraine as humanitarian acts that save them from the war (that Russia started). Russia’s state media frequently parades children newly arrived from Ukraine in front of television cameras, showing Russian officials kissing and hugging them, offering them toys and gift baskets , handing them Russian passports, and depicting them as “abandoned children rescued from the war .” State-linked entities publish propaganda videos “illustrating a constant flow of children from Ukraine into Russia” on Telegram and YouTube.
Russia also spreads false claims aiming to demonize Ukraine and the West in an effort to create further pretext for transferring and deporting Ukraine’s children. For example, two so-called documentary films disseminate disinformation accusing Ukraine, the West, and Western humanitarian organizations of illegal organ trafficking using Ukraine’s children. An RT film, “Tanks for Kidneys ,” absurdly alleges Ukraine’s government is involved in an international illegal child organ trafficking ring. Furthermore, the film purports that NATO and Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) supported a similar past operation in Serbia. A second film, “Let Mom Hear This ” (“Пусть мама услышит” in Russian), disseminated by the pro-Kremlin social media channel “Russia is me ,” features anonymous sources and “experts” claiming that the “White Angels,” an organization ostensibly working under the auspices of Ukraine’s police, murders children in “secret labs” and sells their organs to customers in Europe and the United States. In addition to spreading this gruesome disinformation, the film exploits vulnerable children. After a series of manipulative questions from the interviewer, one girl is led to claim that she would want to stay in Russia, even if her mother decides to take her back to Ukraine.
Lies and Manipulation
While acknowledging the transfer of Ukraine’s children within occupied parts of Ukraine and/or deportation to Russia, respectively, Russian officials also spread false claims in an attempt to obfuscate the Kremlin’s malign activities. For example, Lvova-Belova argued Russia is acting on humanitarian grounds and relying solely on the consent of the children’s parents or other legal guardians. In May 2022, Putin signed a decree easing the process of acquiring Russian Federation citizenship for Ukraine’s orphans and children who are not in the custody of their parents. In January 2023, Putin directed Lvova-Belova to “take additional measures to identify minors” living in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In a February 2023 meeting with Lvova-Belova, he boasted about a “growing number of inquiries from our citizens concerning the adoption of [Ukrainian] children.” Yet Lvova-Belova has repeatedly denied that adoptions are taking place, claiming in March 2023 that 380 orphans were “temporarily placed with families in Russia until their parents can claim them.” Based on a report from Rostov’s regional government, the independent investigative outlet Vazhniye Istorii (Important Stories) determined that the number of Ukraine’s children fostered by families in Russia is 1,184, three times higher than the figure cited by Lvova-Belova.
Disinformation and Propaganda to Manipulate and Indoctrinate Ukraine’s Children
Russian officials also spread false claims denying the Russian government’s systematic efforts to “re-educate” Ukraine’s children to become pro-Russia. Lvova-Belova called the evidence about “re-education” a “conspiracy theory ” and “fake news .” Yale HRL, however, reports that “political re-education” is seen as the primary purpose of these camps. The process of “re-education” includes pro-Russian academic, cultural, and “patriotic” education, including visits to war museums and Russian cultural sites. In some instances, children are also provided military training by Russia’s war veterans, including lessons in operating military vehicles and using firearms. Russia advertises the camps as “integration programs,” with the apparent goal of “integrating children from Ukraine into the Russian government’s vision of national culture, history, and society.”
According to the BBC , Lvova-Belova herself described how Russia manipulates vulnerable children from Ukraine into developing a pro-Russia “ideology and worldview.” Lvova-Belova told the alleged story of thirty children whom the Russian government brought to the Moscow region from Mariupol, a Ukrainian city destroyed by Russia’s armed forces. Lvova-Belova said the children initially articulated anti-Putin views and sang Ukraine’s anthem, describing their expressions as “nasty.” But after “living with Russian families,” their attitudes changed – their “negative” viewpoints transformed into “love for Russia,” Lvova-Belova claimed. In May 2023, Lvova-Belova stated , “We will have to prepare different educational and informational programs. We will have to re-educate [Ukraine’s] children.”
There are many other examples of what the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has called Russia’s efforts to indoctrinate children from Ukraine “into a pro-Russian worldview and historical narrative demeaning Ukrainian identity.” The independent outlet Vazhniye Istorii documented Russian “patriotic” education programs at an orphanage in Nizhniy Novgorod, where children from Ukraine participated in an event commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. The orphanage’s social media pages proclaimed that the event aimed to plant in children a “seed of pride” for the “great” Russia. The orphanage also hosted Russian Federation soldiers who told children “stories of heroism” from the “special military operation,” claiming that Russia was “removing” fascists, Nazis, and “enemies” from Ukraine. While spreading disinformation about “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, the Kremlin has hired officials who espouse support for neo-Nazi ideologies to work on the unlawful transfer of children from Ukraine. According to Reuters , one of Lvova-Belova’s senior aides, Aleksey Petrov, was “associated online as a teenager with white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements.”
Journalists from independent Russian media outlet Verstka claimed that 14 Ukrainian orphans from Kherson were transferred to an “orphanage with brutal conditions” in Crimea. Its mission is to “foster patriotism and civic feeling” in the children who live there to ensure they “identify as citizens of a multinational Russia.” Miroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer for the Save Ukraine project, which helps return deported children to Ukraine, told Ukrainska Pravda , “They [Russia] say that Ukraine has abandoned [the children]. They teach them to hate their parents, and then [to hate] our country, and then to love Russia.” Ekaterina, a 13-year-old from Kherson, and other children who spent time in a camp in Yevpatoriya on the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula, said the camp management forbade the children from talking about Ukraine, forced them to stand for Russia’s national anthem every morning, and threatened to continue to bomb Kyiv while promising to turn Kherson “Russian again.” A 16-year-old named Vitaliy from Beryslav, who was placed in a camp in Russia-occupied Crimea, said , “When they brought us there, they said, ‘Ukraine is made up of terrorists who kill people.’ They beat us with rods for saying, ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ They cursed at us and called us ‘khokhols’ [a derogatory Russian word for Ukrainians]. When one girl hung a Ukrainian flag in her room, they burned it.” Russia occupation authorities in the Zaporizhzhyia region forced the children to pen letters of support to Russia’s soldiers fighting in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s National Resistance Center . Other sources, including returned Ukrainian children themselves, report on similar indoctrination methods. Lvova-Belova said, “Doesn’t it feel patriotic when foreign children don’t exist, and they are all ours?”
The United States Will Pursue Accountability for Russia’s Abuses as Long as It Takes
The Russian government has unlawfully transferred within occupied parts of Ukraine or deported to Russia hundreds of thousands of Ukraine’s civilians, including children, as part of Russia’s filtration operations and through other methods. This is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and an internationally recognized war crime. The ICC Office of the Prosecutor alleges that Russia’s deportation of Ukraine’s children, some of whom have been put up for adoption in Russia, shows an “intention to permanently remove these children from their own country.” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin notes that the “abduction and deportation of children is considered one of the six grave violations against children during armed conflict and is prohibited by international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. It is one of the five prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention” of 1949. Other experts agree that the “mass transfer of children is a war crime, regardless of whether they were orphans.” The deportation of Ukraine’s civilians, including children who have been forcibly separated from their families, was one of the bases for the U.S. Secretary of State’s determination in February 2023 that members of Russia’s forces and other Russian officials have committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Together with our UK and EU partners, the United States is supporting Ukraine’s investigation and prosecution of Russia’s crimes against children through the Atrocity Crimes Advisory (ACA) group.
The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations. The United States stands with Ukraine and will vigilantly pursue accountability for Russia’s appalling abuses, for as long as it takes.