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When President Joe Biden urged world leaders on Tuesday not to diminish support for Ukraine, he used a phrase whose importance you may have missed. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Biden charged (correctly) that Russia's price for peace is "Ukraine's capitulation, Ukraine's territory, and Ukraine's children."
I've added italics to those last two words because of Moscow's policy of illegally transferring tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia proper, or Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, and trying to transform them into good little Ukraine-hating Russians.
In his own speech to the United Nations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also denounced Russia's seizure of his country's children as "purely a genocide." That Russian war crime goes to the heart of why Ukraine believes it must win this war.
According to official data from the Ukrainian government, at least 19,546 children have been transferred illegally to Russian control since the war began. However, those numbers only include cases reported by a parent or guardian. The real figures are probably much higher, and there is no record of whether those children have been adopted or sent to Russian orphanages. Only 386 have been returned.
In a war where bombing civilians is central to Russian military strategy, no war crime seems too heinous to Moscow — from bombing schools, markets and hospitals to torture, rape and murder in Russian-occupied cities.
Yet there is something especially evil about kidnapping children, which relates directly to Vladimir Putin's belief that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian nationality and that the state has no right to exist.
According to this thinking, deporting Ukrainian children makes sense: All Ukrainian youngsters should ultimately be "reeducated" to love the Russian motherland and despise the Ukrainian "Nazis."
"Forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is one of the elements of a war of genocide," Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told me when I visited Kyiv in July. "This is a matter of intentional policy."
That is why the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and his commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging their responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine.
Russia has weaponized food (blocking Ukrainian grain exports) and energy (making threats to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which it occupies), as Zelenskyy pointed out. It has also weaponized ecology, blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam, which flooded cities, farmlands, and animal life. As if this was insufficient, Putin has even weaponized Ukrainian kids.
"The Russians use different ways to take the children out of Ukraine," Kostin related, "not only taking them from orphanages but from families."
In some cases, parents in occupied Ukraine were encouraged to send their children for "rest and recuperation" to camps in Crimea that sought to reeducate them. Many kids were bused there directly from school without parental permission. Many never returned.
During the Russian destruction and occupation of Mariupol and other cities, many thousands of children from orphanages, boarding schools, shelters and hospitals were taken to Russian-controlled areas, even though they might have had family members elsewhere in Ukraine. Children weren't allowed to call friends or relatives, who had no way to find them. Phones were taken away. Young children were put up for adoption.
Often, children were in shelters because their families had been killed by Russian bombing, as in Mariupol, where Russia flattened the city and refused to permit a humanitarian corridor to let civilians exit.
Moscow has made propaganda out of kidnapped children, filming youngsters being given toys and candy and being "happily" adopted. "Children are a sacred cause. We took them out of the conflict zone, saving their lives and health," said the utterly cynical Putin in June. Naturally, he never mentions that most of the children were displaced or orphaned by Russian bombs.
A recent documentary called "Uprooted," produced by the Kyiv Independent newspaper and available on YouTube, interviews some of the few children who were rescued by incredibly brave relatives or guardians.
I interviewed one of those relatives featured in the film, Valentina Yermachkova, who was a 19-year-old student in Dnipro when the war started. Her mother and brother were killed by a Russian shell as they sought food after the Russians invaded Mariupol. Her two younger sisters were moved to a hospital in occupied Donetsk, but not allowed to contact relatives. Fourteen-year-old Sofiia had hidden her brother's phone and eventually managed to sneak a call to her older sister.
Yermachkova, on her own, took buses through Poland, Lithuania, across Russia and back into occupied Donetsk, and demanded the return of her siblings. "I was afraid, but I knew I had no choice," she told me when I met her and her sisters in Dnipro. "Now I realize I might have gotten stuck there, too." She now studies law in the hopes she can work on efforts to rescue other Ukrainian kids.
Rescuing children is one main reason why Prosecutor General Kostin was set to arrive in Washington, D.C., this week to discuss the issue with top U.S. officials; it will also be raised at side meetings during the U.N. General Assembly. "Bringing our children back is a priority," Kostin told me, "for us as a state and for the civilized world."
"Countries in the global south that suffered in the past from violations of basic human rights need to understand that this evil will return if they put their short-term interests higher than their values," Kostin insisted. He was referring to countries such as South Africa, which maintains close ties with Russia and isn't supporting Ukraine.
Whether Ukraine can retrieve its stolen children is a huge question mark, and U.S. officials should offer any help requested. But public focus on the issue is rightly aimed at those leaders worldwide, and in this country, who still seek to shake Putin's hand.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)
Previously:
• 9/22/23: Biden should resolve the blockage of visas for Iraqis and Afghans who helped our troops
• 9/11/23: Even on vacation, there's no escaping Putin's murderous intentions
• 08/18/23: With new weapons slow to arrive from NATO allies, Ukraine surprises Putin with sea drones
• 08/09/23: Lessons from a military funeral in Ukraine
• 07/28/23: As Russian missiles again rain down on Odesa, Putin sneers at the UN and NATO allies
• 07/24/23: Putin is playing a game of food blackmail. The West can't let him win
• 07/19/23: Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? I'm traveling there to find out
• 07/17/23: From hell to Harvard: One Ukrainian's escape and how you can help fulfill her dreams
• 07/11/23: At the NATO summit in Vilnius: Will Biden seize or squander the chance to end Putin's war on Ukraine?
• 04/21/23: The Pentagon documents leak will embolden Putin as he tries to outlast Ukraine
• 03/22/23: The Russian attack on a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone underlines why we must help Ukraine win
• 03/15/23: Will the White House have the courage to propel a Ukrainian victory this year?
• 02/21/23: On the first anniversary of Putin's invasion, Ukraine fights on for its independence and for the security of the West
• 02/17/23: A former Pakistani leader's death, and his wise peace plan that failed
• 02/09/23: Earthquakes killed nearly 12,000 people this week. Three men are partly to blame
• 01/24/23: As Russia murders civilians in Dnipro, why won't NATO send weapons that could end the war?
• 12/28/22: What Zelensky worried about when he addressed a cheering Congress
• 12/13/22: The US-China conflict to watch is the Chip War --- which centers on Taiwan
• 09/14/22: Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support
• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability
• 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'
• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win
• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them
• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war
• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now
• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices
• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia
• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes
• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs
• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs
• 03/18/22: Zelensky's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies
• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up
• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo
• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict
• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia
• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here
• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready
• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?
• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test
• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains
• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?
• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes
• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout
• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent
• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool
• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?
• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms
• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy
• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled
• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?
• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes
• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military
• 12/09/13: The China strategy
• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look
• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?
• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong
• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'
• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.