President Trump must free Ukraine’s 19,546 stolen children as part of any peace plan
Ukraine has verified that Russia has stolen 19,456 children since it invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and has sent them to Russia to be adopted and fostered by Russian families or held in ‘re-education camps” against International Humanitarian Law.
This is a summary excerpt from a four-page report dated March 24, 2025 from the Institute for the Study of War called “Putin is Stealing Ukrainian Children”.
“Russian President, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine with the intent to steal Ukraine’s children. He recognized that to deprive Ukraine of its children would be to deprive it of its multi-generational potential.
The study evidenced that Ukrainian human rights activists uncovered documents from the Kremlin dated February 18, 2022, which revealed plans to remove Ukrainian children from orphanages in the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts and bring them to Russia under the mask of “humanitarian evacuations”. These documents prove a systematic strategy on the part of Russia to steal Ukraine’s children before the invasion was even underway.
In May 2022, Putin signed a decree simplifying the pathway and procedures for Ukrainian children “left without parental care and incapacitated persons” to obtain Russian citizenship. This amounted to the legalization of the process of deporting Ukrainian children and forcibly granting them Russian citizenship.
Russian occupation administrators advertised programs that take Ukrainian children from their homes in occupied Ukraine to Russia in the guise of camps for their supposed rest, relaxation, and rehabilitation. This process continues unencumbered. As recently as March 19, 2025, Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky announced plans to remove 70 children from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast to a Russian government-controlled children’s camp in occupied Crimea.
Russia is using at least 43 children’s camps throughout Russia to house deported children. Russia uses many of these camps to indoctrinate Ukrainian children, punishing them for their Ukrainian identities and forcibly instilling pro-Russian sentiment through Kremlin-approved curricula and “military-patriotic” training courses.
The children not in “re-education” camps have been forcibly placed in foster homes in Russia or adopted by Russian families. The adoption process strips Ukrainian children of their birth certificates, names, and identities and replaces them with Russian birth certificates, names, and identities. This is carefully crafted to erase the child’s Ukrainian identity and any paper trail that would allow Ukrainian authorities or family members to find them
For any Ukrainian teenage boy, the adoption of Russian citizenship automatically qualifies them to be conscripted and sent to the frontlines to fight against their countrymen another crime against international law.”
The abduction of the thousands of Ukrainian children sent to Russia is considered genocide by the U.N. Treaty definition.
The American Ukraine PAC calls for the Trump Administration to ensure that the Peace Plan guarantees that every Ukrainian child is returned home.