Russia’s mass deportation of Ukrainian children is a crime against humanity, a new United Nations investigation has found. Published this week by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the report concluded that following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Kremlin officials “at the highest level” have overseen large-scale deportations from occupied regions of Ukraine targeting thousands of Ukrainian children.
The report provides fresh insights into Russia’s comprehensive wartime program of child deportations. Moscow is accused of abducting tens of thousands of Ukrainian children since 2022 and forcibly transferring them to Russia as part of a “carefully organized plan” coordinated at the highest levels of the Russian Federation state apparatus. Many victims are reportedly subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to strip them of their Ukrainian identity and impose Russian nationality. This process often includes name changes and adoption into Russian families.
Despite extensive campaigning and humanitarian efforts by Ukraine and the international community, only a relatively small number of abducted children have so far been rescued. The plight of Ukraine’s deported kids has made global headlines and has attracted the attention of US First Lady Melania Trump, who has reportedly sought to help facilitate the return of victims by engaging directly with the Kremlin.
The new UN report noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in the mass deportations has been “visible from the outset.” This tallies with existing criminal charges against Putin brought by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In spring 2023, ICC officials issued an arrest warrant for Putin for his personal role in Russia’s child abduction program. This warrant has since prevented the Kremlin dictator from attending a number of international summits due to fears that he may face arrest for war crimes.
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This is not the first time United Nations investigators have accused Russia of committing crimes against humanity during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A spring 2025 UN probe concluded that the large-scale detention of Ukrainians in occupied regions of the country represented a “systematic attack against the civilian population” that qualified as a crime against humanity. In areas of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, Moscow is accused of conducting a Stalin-style terror campaign of mass arrests targeting thousands of civilians including elected officials, journalists, civil society activists, religious leaders, cultural figures, and military veterans.
Similarly, a more recent UN investigation into targeted Russian drone strikes against the civilian population in three front line regions of southern Ukraine determined that these aerial attacks amount to a crime against humanity. The killings are clearly intentional, United Nations investigators concluded, with Russian troops reportedly using video-guided drones to hunt down individual victims. Terrified locals refer to Russia’s drone strikes on civilians as a “human safari.”
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The Kremlin’s ongoing program of child deportations and accompanying anti-Ukrainian indoctrination are viewed in Kyiv as elements of a broader Russian plan to erase Ukrainian national identity entirely. Throughout occupied regions of Ukraine, the Russian authorities are ruthlessly eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood, history, language, and cultural heritage. Meanwhile, local residents are being forced to accept Russian citizenship. Anyone who refuses to cooperate risks being denied access to basic public services or deported.
Moscow’s efforts to forcibly Russify thousands of abducted Ukrainian children have been widely cited as evidence of the genocidal intent underpinning Russia’s invasion. This is hardly surprising. The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention specifically identifies “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as one of five internationally recognized acts of genocide.
Russia rejects United Nations claims that it is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine and has consistently denied allegations of mass child abductions. Instead, Kremlin officials maintain that the large-scale transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied Ukraine to Russia is a routine wartime safety measure. However, nobody in Moscow has been able to explain why it is necessary to indoctrinate children against their native Ukraine and force them to adopt a Russian national identity in order ensure their safety.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.
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Image: Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights (Kyiv, Ukraine), holds pictures she says depicts abducted Ukrainian children as she testifies before a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the abduction of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. December 3, 2025. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)