Ukrainian Children Being Taken to Russia by the Thousands

Ukraine’s Children of War patrol platform reported on February 6 that Russia is known to have forcibly deported at least 16,200 Ukrainian children to Russian territory since the beginning of its invasion. The complete number is likely considerably higher.

Although not all the children can be accounted for, Children of War estimated:

• About 9,510 have been found.
• Roughly 350 are still missing.
• Over 900 were injured.
• Around 461 died.

These numbers are not final. Work is ongoing to establish them in the places of hostilities, in temporarily occupied and liberated territories.
—Ukraine’s Procurator General’s office

An earlier report from Ukrinform claimed that more than 230,000 children had been displaced as early as May 2022. And Russia itself claims that the number is in the hundreds of thousands. Children of War is reporting only children that the group has independently confirmed.

Russia’s narrative: Many of the children were taken from Ukraine’s child-care facilities after they came under Russian occupation before they could be evacuated. Russian officials told the children that their parents had abandoned them, then took the children deeper into Russia-occupied territory or straight into Russia under the excuse that the kids were orphans.

The narrative is that these are children that are left behind by Ukraine. They weren’t protected. They needed help. … But what is really happening is that many of these kids are not orphans, and under the pretense of saving these children, they are actually separating them from their families.
—Bill Van Esveld, associate director of the Children’s Division at Human Rights Watch

Genocide: The forced removal of people, especially children, from an occupied territory is considered a crime against humanity. Russia’s war on Ukraine has displaced an uncountable number of people and severely affected thousands of children. What Russia is doing in Ukraine clearly falls under the definition of genocide.

Leaders of the United States and Britain appear willfully blind to the nature of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. … This man is a killer. He needs to be feared and respected. He is changing the course of history.
—Brad Macdonald, theTrumpet.com managing editor, “Fear This Man”

Learn more: Read The Prophesied ‘Prince of Rosh.’