Senior Russian authorities, including President Vladimir Putin, were directly involved in ordering the forcible transfer, fostering, and later adoption of Ukrainian children moved out of war zones and occupied regions of Ukraine, U.S. researchers found.
In a report released on December 3, investigators from Yale University said at least 314 children from Ukraine were subject to a "systematic program of coerced adoption and fostering" by Russian individuals and families.
"The Russian Federation engaged in systematic, deliberate, and widespread forced adoption and transfer of children from Ukraine," the report says. "The operation...was initiated by Putin and his subordinates with the intent to 'Russify' children from Ukraine."
The findings add to a growing body of evidence pointing to possible culpability for war crimes by Putin and other top officials.
Vladimir Putin (left) and his children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, have been charged by the International Criminal Court with war crimes for the "unlawful deportation" of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 for the "war crime of unlawful deportation" and "unlawful transfer" of children from Ukrainian territory to Russia. The Kremlin's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, was also charged.
Researchers at Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, whose work is partially supported by the U.S. State Department, said they had documented since 2022:
- Planes registered to the Russian Air Force and the presidential office were used to fly children to Russia;
- Ukrainian children were taken to Russia for months, enrolled in Russian schools, then listed in child-placement databases;
- Some Ukrainian children appear in Russian databases as if they were Russian-born, not Ukrainian-born;
- Russian citizens who took on legal guardianship of Ukrainian minors were "empowered" to apply for Russian citizenship for the children in their
custody; - Ukrainian children were subjected to "pro-Russian reeducation" at Russian state-run institutions.
The majority of the children from Ukraine who are listed in Russian databases, the report says, were taken from Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian region that has been partially occupied by Russian and Russian-allied forces since 2014.
The Kremlin has declared the annexation of the Donetsk region, and three other Ukrainian regions -- Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson -- plus the Crimean Peninsula. Only Syria and North Korea have recognized the move.
Russian officials frequently portray their efforts as a humanitarian gesture, sheltering, feeding, or protecting children from war or the breakdown of services in occupied regions. However, in many cases, Russian authorities did little to identify parents or relatives or legal guardians of the Ukrainian children.
Ukrainian officials, journalists, and civil society activists, meanwhile, have also compiled substantial evidence of state support for transferring and deporting children out of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin (center) has traveled to Washington and other Western capitals trying to draw attention to the issue.
In many cases, the effort strained Russia's already overburdened social welfare infrastructure. Hundreds of Ukrainian children were transferred from occupied Ukrainian regions and sent to a network of summer and holiday camps in Belarus, where they were exposed to pro-Russian education and propaganda, RFE/RL found.
According to official Ukrainian figures, as of July 24, 2024, 19,546 children had been deported from Ukraine to Russia since the start of Russia's all-out invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine’s human rights commissioner last month said 1,012 children had been returned from Russia to date.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement on December 4 that it was pursuing visa restrictions for five Russian officials backed or installed by Russia in response to their involvement in human rights abuses in Ukraine, including the forced deportation of children.
"Many of these children have had their identities changed and origins obscured, have been subjected to pro-Russian indoctrination and militarization, or have been adopted by Russian families," the State Department said.
It did not identify the five Russian officials but added that Kremlin authorities had created obstacles preventing the return of the children to Ukraine.
"Russia's continued contempt for its international legal obligations to report the locations of these children makes securing their safe return nearly impossible," the State Department said.