France urges EU to find Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia

Insight News, citing Euractiv, reported that the Senate's resolution also calls for sanctions against Russian officials involved in these crimes.

The resolution condemns Russia's deportation of Ukrainian children, as well as the regime's administrative and widespread naturalization, name change, and filiation of children transported to its territory. It was approved unanimously.

The radical left (La France Insoumise) boycotted a prior National Assembly vote on a resolution labeling the Holodomor, a man-made famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, as genocide, and the Communist Party voted against it. Because of their ties with the Soviet Communist Party, French leftists have always held favorable views of Moscow.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who orchestrated these massive deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia, on March 17.

The Senate's position would bolster a February announcement by Poland and the European Commission to gather evidence, locate the children, and prosecute those involved for these crimes.

There is hope that the penalties for kidnapping children will become harsher. A first set of sanctions on this subject was included in the EU's 10th sanctions package, which was agreed in late February. 

The resolution has no legal implications, but it should help to increase pressure on the Russian government, especially given the considerable efforts to conceal kidnapped Ukrainian children.

Experts also highlight the difficulties in discovering the kidnapped youngsters and acquiring evidence. The resolution also requests that the EU and its members contribute as much as possible to data and information collecting.

Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, is being asked by the French government to increase its human, material, and financial resources. It also calls on the international community to make diplomatic efforts to open channels of communication and accelerate the process of returning Ukrainian children to their home country by granting international humanitarian organizations access to these children while they are on Russian territory or in Russian-controlled areas.

Another critical purpose of such investigations and research is to determine whether even more heinous crimes have occurred. Russia's figure of over 700,000 displaced children could be used to cover up some child killings.

The National Assembly, the lower chamber of the French parliament, is expected to follow the Senate's lead in the next weeks or months.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of Ukrainian children in foster care have been forcibly moved to captured territory or Russia itself, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Since the start of the full-fledged war, Russians have deported about 11,200 Ukrainian children (as of November 2022). On the website https://childrenofwar.gov.ua, the Ukrainian government provided data on children who were killed, injured, or abducted. This information was also confirmed by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine.