Amidst the horrors perpetuated by Russia in its war against Ukraine, perhaps the gravest have been the crimes Vladimir Putin’s army has committed against Ukrainian children. Nearly 600 children have been killed and nearly 1,300 injured in the two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
For the children who have survived, the mental toll of the war has been terrifying. Ukrainian children have spent between 3,800 and 4,500 hours sheltering from air raids. Additionally, survey data of parents identified 13-to-15-year-olds having trouble sleeping and experiencing intrusive thoughts and flashbacks – a clear manifestation of post-traumatic stress.
Russia has gone a step further and admitted to kidnapping almost 700,000 Ukrainian children since the full-scale invasion – a grave violation under international law. This crime against humanity led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s so-called “commissioner for children’s rights” in March 2023. Regrettably, some countries have failed to enforce the ICC’s clear mandate to arrest Putin on their soil or to otherwise punish Russia for its war crimes against Ukraine.
Returning Ukraine’s children from Russian captivity should be the international community’s most urgent moral imperative and task. Save Ukraine, a leading Ukrainian nongovernmental organization dedicated to returning Ukrainian children, has shown the way.
The organization has returned over 500 Ukrainian children from Russian captivity, out of the nearly 20,000 the organization has identified. Beyond operating as a modern-day underground railroad for abducted children from Russia, Save Ukraine also conducts frontline evacuations and provides psychological assistance to impacted children in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s former commissioner for children’s rights Mykola Kuleba founded Save Ukraine in 2014, after Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine. For his efforts, Kuleba was awarded the Magnitsky Human Rights Award last year – named after lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, whom the Russian authorities tortured to death in jail in 2009, and whose name now also bears the world’s most recognized human rights sanctions law.
Led by Kuleba and its Texas-based CEO Heather Dyer, Save Ukraine is visiting the United States this week on the heels of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s high-profile visit last week.
The stakes for Ukraine could not be higher, both for its survival and for its future leaders – the Ukrainian children. The United States must continue to provide economic and military support for Ukraine to ensure its freedom and to combat global authoritarianism.
These issues should unite all Americans – despite Russia’s disinformation campaigns intended to persuade the U.S. to abandon Ukraine and turn Americans against one another. We must continue to hold Russia accountable for its many crimes committed in Ukraine, especially against its children.
