Russia recruiting abducted Ukrainian children into army, Zelensky says

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Ellie Cook

By Ellie Cook

Senior Defense Reporter

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Russia has recruited abducted Ukrainian children into its army, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Kyiv says Russia has taken more than 20,000 Ukrainian children from annexed parts of Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Just over a tenth of this number have been returned to Ukraine, according to Kyiv officials. Thousands of others are listed officially as missing.

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United Nations experts said in March that Russia had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by deporting Ukrainian children from their home country. Kyiv accuses Moscow of carrying out a "large-scale and systematic" operation.

Russia says it has not abducted children from Ukraine, but evacuated vulnerable young people from conflict zones.

"Russia has already begun sending some of these children, whom they abducted from us and who have grown up during this war, into its ranks," Zelensky said during a visit to the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Thursday, according to Ukraine's state news agency.

This could mean that Ukrainian children are being deployed as part of Russia's invading forces to attack their own country.

Newsweek contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Children play in front of missile-damaged buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in 2023.

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In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's presidential commissioner for children, Maria Lvova-Belova, for alleged "criminal responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

Moscow is not an ICC member state and does not recognize its authority. The court does not have a police force of its own, and relies on its member states to execute these warrants.

U.N. experts said earlier this year that they had verified more than 1,200 children taken from five of Ukraine's regions, and accused Russian authorities of "failing to disclose the whereabouts of the children to parents or legal guardians," and blocking their return to Ukraine.

Roughly 80 percent of these children have not been returned and instead kept in Russian institutions or placed with long-term adoptive parents in Russia, the international experts said. These children are described as facing delays and serious risks to their own safety.

Ukraine said on Thursday that one child, originally from the southern Kherson region that is partly controlled by Russia, had returned to Ukrainian territory along with her mother. Another five children and young adults are listed as having returned to Ukrainian-held soil since October 29.