Man Hunters
The UN report "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children" back in 1996 stated that "All children's rights are violated during war: the right to life, the right to be with family and community, the right to health, the right to personal development, and the right to care and protection." This fully applies to the Russian-Ukrainian war, also because the Kremlin views Ukrainian children as a resource that it must capture and turn them into Russians, just like the majority of the Russian population: with blind faith in and fear of the Russian government, hatred of the whole world, which allegedly wants to destroy Russia, and a doomed willingness to accept any decision of the authorities regarding themselves and their loved ones. And in order to get Ukrainian children, Moscow is ready to violate the law, as well as the laws of morality and humanity.
The problem existed even before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. In particular, the removal of Ukrainian children from Donetsk and Luhansk, which were under the control of the Russian Federation, has been taking place since 2014. Several cases mainly concerned the removal of children from orphanages under the pretext of evacuation from the war zone. During that period, Russia used mainly a hybrid method. The removal took place mainly not under the control of state institutions, but was presented as a "volunteer initiative".
An example is the activities of the Fair Aid Foundation of Yelizaveta Glinka (also known as "Dr. Lisa") to take Ukrainian children for treatment and rehabilitation, which was extremely ambiguous from the legal point of view. Moreover, in reality, "Dr. Lisa" was affiliated with the Russian authorities and had regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage, which allowed her to carry out such activities.
Ultimately, her death occurred as a result of the crash of a Tu-154 airliner belonging to the Russian Air Force when she was flying on another "charity event" to Syria. Clearly, there would have been no need for this action if Moscow, together with its vassal Assad, had not organized a bloody massacre in that country. And this is not the only example.
Children of the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which was occupied by Russians in 2014 and declared its territory by Russia, were absorbed into the Russian system of upbringing and education. There, as well as in the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, a mechanism was in place to turn children into combat units of the Russian world. Not only educational institutions play an important role in this, but also militaristic structures such as the so-called "Unarmy", which involves children and adolescents on a massive scale. Ukrainian children "brought up" in this way in the territories occupied by Russia for eight years, who have become adults, have already become victims of Russian militarism, which has thrown them into a fratricidal war against Ukraine since February 24, 2022. And this is Russia's crime.
Deportations, "Adoption", "Upbringing" - Mechanisms of Russian Genocide
Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, the situation has changed dramatically. Given that the aggressor state has taken a course of destruction of Ukrainian statehood and identity, the military actions of Russian troops are indiscriminate, Ukrainian children are becoming victims of Russian aggression. According to the official and clearly far from complete data of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, 512 children died as a result of Russian aggression from February 24, 2022, to December 19, 2023, 1159 children were injured, and 2286 children are missing.
Children are victims of sexual crimes by the occupiers (currently, there are 13 children who have been victims of sexual crimes by Russians, although this is also a drop in the bucket). According to the same data, 19,546 Ukrainian children have been illegally taken to Russia and deported. It should be noted that all these figures are clearly incomplete. In particular, with regard to the number of children deported to Russia, it can be reasonably assumed that their number is at least several tens of thousands to several hundred thousand. In fact, the Russians themselves, who do not hide the fact that they are engaged in deportations, named different figures, each of which was not less than several hundred thousand, up to seven hundred thousand inclusive.
On a systematic basis, the occupiers deport Ukrainian children whose parents were killed as a result of the Russian invasion, orphans from orphanages taken away from their parents for their patriotic position, and transfer them to specialized institutions and to families who profess the ideology of the "Russian world." There, they are raised and educated outside the Ukrainian ethnic tradition, with the formation of hatred for Ukraine and the indoctrination of myths of aggressive Russian ideology.
Being raised outside of one's place of origin is a form of genocide. Russia has introduced a procedure for simplified granting of its citizenship to Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. Children are used by the Russian occupiers as hostages to put pressure on their parents who refuse to cooperate with the occupation authorities. The occupiers threaten to take them away from their parents for "improper upbringing". There are systematic cases of children of officials and local government employees being taken to Russian regions "for vacation" where they are kept to ensure parental loyalty.
In the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, the occupiers use repression against those who try to continue their schooling under Ukrainian programs. In particular, the occupiers prohibit this education, threaten parents with deprivation of parental rights if their children study remotely under the Ukrainian program, and imprison teachers who do not cooperate with the occupation authorities. These actions of Russia provoked the reaction from Amnesty International, which stated that "The occupation authorities must immediately stop intimidating the local population, forcing educational staff to conduct inappropriate educational activities and other abuses. In times of war or occupation, all parties are obliged to respect international humanitarian and human rights law. Ensuring children's right to access quality education is one of these obligations."
Russian officials have repeatedly emphasized that all of this is Russian state policy and constitutes a violation of law. The Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, illegally adopted a Ukrainian boy from Donbas and publicly acknowledged this fact. The illegal deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia is carried out systematically, and Russia refuses to share information with Ukraine about their fate and whereabouts.
Ukraine Is Returning its Children
The main law of Ukraine regulating the situation with children in the context of the armed conflict is the Law of Ukraine on the Protection of Childhood. The Human Rights Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is responsible for protecting children's rights in times of war. The position is currently held by Dmytro Lubinets. Also, in 2021, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy reformed the institution of the Presidential Commissioners. The position of Advisor to the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation was created. In March 2022, a special resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine established the Coordination Headquarters for the Protection of Children's Rights under Martial Law.
The Coordination Headquarters is co-chaired by the Advisor to the Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation and the Minister of Social Policy. The Children of War platform operates in Ukraine, the only platform that provides up-to-date and consolidated information about children affected by the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine (killed, wounded, missing, deported) and those who have been found and rescued. Quantitative indicators are updated daily by law enforcement agencies. Ukraine draws attention to the problem of violations of children's rights by the Russian occupiers at all levels and international platforms. Ukraine draws the world's attention to the unsuccessful cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the issue of rescuing children illegally taken from the territory of Ukraine.
However, the ICRC is unwilling to accept information from Ukrainian government agencies, arguing that they can only receive such data in the form of statements from parents and close relatives. At the same time, this is mostly impossible, as parents and children are often forcibly separated during displacement, relatives go missing or are killed. In such cases, it is the state that must ensure the rights of children.
Ukraine is trying to use all possible means to return the children deported to Russia. The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced a special Action Plan Bring Kids Back UA. To this end, the Ombudsman's Office is holding negotiations with the Russian side and intermediaries. To date, 387 children have been returned. In particular, on December 16, it became known about the return of three children (one born in 2008 and two born in 2011) with the mediation of the State of Qatar.
The World's Reaction
The UN Human Rights Council, in its human rights resolution, called on the Russian Federation to stop deporting Ukrainian children and to cancel the decision to simplify the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for Ukrainian orphans and children left without parental care. On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Presidential Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova for the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
On April 27, 2023, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) recognized the deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia as genocide. The resolution emphasizes that "the documented facts of the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children fall within the scope of the 1948 Genocide Convention, Article 2 of which states that the forcible transfer of children with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group constitutes a crime of genocide."
It should be noted that Putin's arrest warrant has already significantly reduced his ability to travel around the world and forced some of the countries that would have been willing to host events with his participation to make excuses for their inability to host the Russian dictator. In particular, this was the case with Brazil, South Africa and Armenia.
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Such a blatant disregard by Russia for international law and the rights of the child can be explained by a number of reasons. Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine itself is aimed at destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity, which is why the entire population of Ukraine is perceived by Russians at all levels as prey to be treated as their own. Russia has the most serious population problems, especially among Russians, who are experiencing depopulation. By assimilating Ukrainian children, they are solving the problem of their own demography.
Russia's actions against Ukrainian children and violations of their rights by the Russian occupiers during the full-scale aggression should be considered without question at the future Tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine and at the International Criminal Court. The list of participants in the crime should be expanded to include Russian officials and others involved in organizing the deportation.