Stolen childhood: UN commission recognizes Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children as a war crime

The deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia has become one of the most painful topics of the war, as it involves the forced removal of minors from their homes, separation from their parents, and years of uncertainty for their families. For many children, this means both the loss of their familiar environment and life in foreign institutions or families, with no clear path back. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has recognized this process in a new report as a crime against humanity and a war crime.

New report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine

A new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has provided an even clearer international legal assessment of this phenomenon. The Commission has concluded that the deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children by Russia constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is stated in the report of the commission presented at the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council.

At the heart of the report is a conclusion that has both legal and human significance, as it is an official recognition that the removal of Ukrainian children cannot be explained by the consequences of war or temporary circumstances. The Commission speaks of crimes against humanity and war crimes, that is, actions that grossly violate the norms of international law and cause particularly grave harm to those who should be under special protection.

“The Commission continued its investigation into the deportation or transfer of children by the Russian authorities to the Russian Federation or to the areas it occupied in Ukraine. Convincing evidence regarding the deportation and transfer of a total of 1,205 children from five regions of Ukraine was verified by the Commission and leads to the conclusion that these actions constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes of deportation and forcible transfer of children,” – the report states.

This means that the Commission did not limit itself to general assessments or political formulations, but relied on verified materials that gave grounds to speak about the specific composition of international crimes. These are 1205 children from five regions of Ukraine, whose fates have become part of a large body of evidence indicating the systemic nature of these actions.

The Commission also confirmed its previous conclusion that the Russian authorities illegally deported and transferred children, as well as unreasonably delayed their repatriation, which are war crimes. What is particularly important in this conclusion is that it concerns not only the fact of removal itself, but also the further blocking of the children’s return home, that is, the long-term continuation of a crime that multiplies the suffering of both children and their families.

In addition, the measures taken against deported or displaced children, as the report emphasizes, “violated the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law and were not guided by the best interests of the child.” This part of the report is of particular importance, as it undermines any attempts to present the removal of children as care or protection, while the very logic of these actions, according to the commission’s conclusions, did not meet the main criterion that should be decisive in matters concerning minors.

From transit centers to Russian regions

According to the report, the children were first transported to transit centers in Russia or in the occupied territories, and then distributed to families or institutions in 21 regions of the Russian Federation, where they were held for an indefinite period. This fragment is particularly telling, as it shows that after the removal itself, a whole system of further placement of children was unfolding, in which the child lost not only the connection with home, but also clarity about his or her own status, future, and possibility of return.

The Commission also found that children were often granted Russian citizenship and included in adoption or foster care databases. In practical terms, this meant an attempt not just to transport the child to another place, but to embed him or her in another state and social system, where his or her Ukrainian origin, family ties, and right to return could be further and further removed.

The most frightening thing about this situation is that we are talking about children who have already experienced war, the loss of their usual life, and the shock of separation. When after that their documents, environment and even their ideas about their own future are changed, then the childhood trauma becomes not the result of a single episode, but a long process of destroying the usual supports.

Children of war as the main victims of politics

The report specifically emphasizes the significant psychological trauma that children suffer. This is one of the most important aspects of the document, because the legal assessments are based on the child’s psyche, which experiences separation from family completely differently than an adult. For a child, forced removal means not only a change of residence, but also a feeling that the familiar world has collapsed without explanation, without control and without the possibility of turning everything back.

In particular, the report says that in Russian boarding schools they are sometimes told that their parents have abandoned them. Such words for a child who is already in a state of fear and uncertainty can have a particularly devastating effect, since they strike at the most painful place – trust in the closest people and the very foundation of a child’s sense of security.

Therefore, the emphasis in this story cannot be reduced only to international law or interstate decisions. These are children of war who found themselves not just in the midst of a general disaster, but in a situation where their age made them even more defenseless against violence, separation, someone else’s will, and long months of living without an answer to the main question – when they will be able to return home.

According to the commission’s findings, about 80% of documented cases have not yet ended with the return of children to Ukraine. This figure is striking not only in its scale, but also in the fact that behind it is the duration of suffering, which does not end after the moment of deportation. For a huge number of children, this story did not become a short episode, after which return occurs, but turned into a protracted state of uncertainty.

Many parents and legal guardians did not know anything about the fate and whereabouts of their children for months or even years. For families, this means a grueling existence between hope and fear, in which each new day brings no answers but only prolongs the separation. For the children themselves, it means life without the usual circle of love and support, without which childhood becomes not a period of development and protection, but a space of coercion and loss.

How obstacles to return were created

In most cases, as the commission emphasized, the Russian authorities did not create a mechanism for the return of children, effectively shifting the search and organization of repatriation to relatives. This conclusion contains one of the harshest assessments of the entire system, since it concerns not only the removal, but also the deliberate failure to resolve the issue of return, when the affected families themselves are forced to take on what should have been provided by the party that keeps the children under control.

At the same time, the repatriation of those children who were successfully returned was accompanied by numerous obstacles and risks. This means that even returning home was not a restoration of justice in due legal order, but a difficult and dangerous path that the families went through almost alone, overcoming circumstances that should have been eliminated at the level of state decisions.

“The Commission also concluded that the Russian authorities committed a crime against humanity in the form of the forced disappearance of children deported or displaced from Ukraine, as well as the war crime of unjustified delay in their repatriation,” – the report says.

This formulation is one of the most severe in the entire report, as it indicates that the children were not simply taken away, but were actually torn from their environment in such a way that for their relatives their location, condition and prospects for return became uncertain or unattainable.

Signs of coordination at the highest level

Investigators emphasize that this activity is coordinated at the highest level of Russian power, in particular through structures associated with Vladimir Putin’s apparatus. This conclusion is important because it indicates the systematic nature of these actions and their inclusion in the mechanism of state administration, and not the randomness or spontaneous actions of individual perpetrators.

The report also records cases of the transfer of deported children to the families of Russian officials. In particular, the “adoption” of a baby from Kherson by the leader of the “A Just Russia – For the Truth” faction in the State Duma, Sergei Mironov, is mentioned.

This episode is particularly telling, as it moves the conversation from the plane of general assessments to the plane of specific facts, where it is clear how the fates of Ukrainian children are intertwined with the Russian political system. When such examples appear in the report, it becomes even more obvious that we are not talking about individual anonymous stories, but about a practice that reaches high-ranking circles.

Ukraine’s reaction to the report

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga welcomed the report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and its document on the deportation and displacement of Ukrainian children on the social network X.

“The commission’s findings confirm that Russia’s large-scale and systematic violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including the deportation of Ukrainian children, constitute crimes against humanity and are part of a coordinated state policy approved at the highest level, in particular Putin,” he stressed.