Of the many crimes Russia is accused of committing in Ukraine, few are as shocking as the mass abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children. Ukraine has identified about 20,000 children who have been forcibly deported since the start of its full-scale invasion three years ago, but officials believe the true toll could be much higher. The allegations are so serious that the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 on war crimes charges.
Ensuring the return of Ukraine’s abducted children is set to play a role in the peace efforts recently launched by U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking in February, Trump acknowledged his awareness of the situation and said he could potentially persuade Putin to release the children as part of a negotiated settlement to end the war. “I believe I could, yes,” he told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade.
Efforts to rescue the thousands of Ukrainian children held in Russia are likely to receive strong public support in the United States, including from Trump supporters. The Rev. Jason Charron, who prayed for Trump moments before his near assassination attempt in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election campaign, recently wrote to the U.S. leader, urging him to “be a shield for the Ukrainian people and for the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia.”
The Kremlin’s illegal deportations have also drawn sharp bipartisan condemnation in the U.S. political arena. Less than a year ago, a resolution condemning Russia’s “illegal abductions” as a violation of the U.N. Genocide Convention passed the U.S. House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority, with the support of leading Republicans including Speaker Mike Johnson.
Meanwhile, a study supported by the US State Department has provided grim details of Russia’s deportation operations and directly linked them to Putin. According to a report from the Yale School of Public Health published in December 2024, the Russian president’s planes and funds were used in a program to remove children from occupied Ukrainian territories, strip them of their Ukrainian identity, and place them with Russian families.
Russia has been accused of fomenting a large-scale, coordinated and systematic policy to remove thousands of Ukrainian children from their homes and strip them of their Ukrainian roots through a network of camps and foster homes where they are indoctrinated and, in many cases, given new Russian names. Kremlin officials have tried to justify the deportations by claiming they are motivated by wartime security concerns, but their actions remain a violation of international law. There has also been no attempt to explain why the children are subsequently brainwashed into adopting a Russian identity.
The abductions inflict enormous harm on the victims, their families and wider communities. The relatively few children who have so far returned to Ukraine have provided harrowing accounts of their experiences in Russia. Many have described being subjected to physical and psychological abuse because of their Ukrainian identity, or being abandoned by their family and country.
There is currently no international legal mechanism to facilitate the safe return of abducted Ukrainian children. However, the United States has many cards it can play to achieve this goal. U.S. sanctions against Russia do not primarily address individual aspects of the invasion. Instead, they focus on the illegal act of the invasion itself, which violates the United Nations Charter. American negotiators can make clear to their Kremlin counterparts that without the safe return of all abducted Ukrainian children, the Russian invasion cannot be considered over and the sanctions cannot be lifted.
Sanctions could also be used to undermine the Kremlin’s ability to continue kidnappings. The United States could follow the lead of the United Kingdom, which imposed targeted sanctions in late 2024 against individuals identified as “responsible for Russia’s forced deportation and brainwashing of Ukrainian children.” British officials have described the kidnappings as a “systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity.”
By focusing on the plight of kidnapped Ukrainian children, Trump could instill much-needed international credibility in his peacekeeping efforts. Meanwhile, given his close personal connection to the mass kidnappings, Putin has the ability to halt the policy and order the return of Ukrainian children. In the absence of public signs that Russia is committed to long-term peace, initiatives to identify victims and secure their return to Ukraine could be a key U.S. requirement to test that commitment.
Before sanctions are even partially lifted, the United States should insist on concrete steps from the Russian side to end the kidnappings and allow Ukraine to bring all victims home. It should be made clear that this must be verified by independent monitoring mechanisms. If progress is possible, it could serve as a first step toward addressing other serious human rights problems, such as the widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians in Russian captivity.
Christina Hook is an associate professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Julia Hoban, PhD, is an expert on children and childhood in peace and security studies and on the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on vulnerable populations.
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