Ukraine and Canada are establishing an open international coalition to work on the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during the war. This was announced today by Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba during the Canadian minister’s visit to Kyiv, reports
“Another reality of this war is the tragic illegal removal of thousands of Ukrainian children from Ukraine. They were taken from their homes, from their families, and deprived of their own language. The importance of returning children cannot be underestimated. It is a matter of our humanity. That is why today Canada and Ukraine will launch an international coalition to return Ukrainian children. We can work with many countries around the world to protect the rights of these children,”
– said Minister Joly.
Dmytro Kuleba noted that he believes in the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism.
“The mechanism proposed by Canada to address this issue is effective. And we hope that [other] countries will take an active part in the efforts to return our children.”
– added the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.
Abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia
on 1 February 2024, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin said that during the war, Russia forcibly removed 19,546 children from Ukraine under the guise of “humanitarian operations”.
“These children are not only displaced, but also deprived of their Ukrainian identity: they are granted Russian citizenship, placed in Russian families, forced to undergo re-education in Russian, and forbidden to speak Ukrainian. Teenage boys are often forced to participate in militarisation programmes,”
– kostin said.
At the same time, this estimate of the scale of abductions of Ukrainian children is not the only one and certainly not the highest. In particular, the main organiser of these abductions, the so-called Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, in the summer of 2023, mentioned the figure of 744,000 Ukrainian children “taken by the Russian Federation”. Russia does not provide any data on this process and is not accountable to anyone, so it is almost impossible to verify the veracity of this statement.
Daria Gerasymchuk, the Ukrainian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, questions the figure quoted by Belova and believes that it is a standard exaggeration of Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian side estimates that there may be 200-300,000 abducted Ukrainian children. These estimates are approximate, as we are talking about children from the occupied territories and information about them is collected in a variety of ways. However, the Ukrainian side considers this approximate figure to be close to reality.
However, the Ukrainian side has absolutely accurate data on abductions, including personal data, only for 19,546 children. That is why this figure is officially announced, although everyone understands that it is quite far from reality.