About 1.6 million Ukrainian children remain under Russian occupation — Bring Kids Back UA

She said this in an interview with Espreso journalist Tetyana Yavorska.

Before the full-scale invasion, there were about 7 million children living in Ukraine. Human rights organizations estimate that approximately 1.6 million children currently remain in the temporarily occupied territories. According to Daria Zarivna, Russia has reported taking at least 744,000 Ukrainian children to its territory, mostly together with their parents.

“However, Ukraine and international organizations cannot verify or disprove this information, as Russia refuses to provide any details. Following the issuance of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia completely halted all public communication regarding deported Ukrainian children.

As a result, it is now extremely difficult to determine how many children have died, been separated from their parents since February 2022, or were born after the full-scale invasion began,” Zarivna noted.

Assessing the scale of Russia’s crime, the head of Bring Kids Back UA pointed out Argentina’s experience, when 500 children were abducted in Argentina during the dictatorship of 1976–1983.

“So far, only 132 of them have been identified through DNA testing. In Ukraine’s case, we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of children whose fates remain unknown. Ukraine urgently needs support. New search technologies, access to intelligence data, cooperation between intelligence agencies, and the involvement of the world’s leading OSINT centers are critical. Every small detail, every minor clue can save a child's life and offer them a future. The scale of Russia's crime is unprecedented. The world has never faced a tragedy of this magnitude before,” she said.

According to Zarivna, Ukraine has officially documented at least 19,546 cases of illegal deportation or forced displacement of children. However, the real number is much higher, but Russia blocks access to information, making it impossible to fully assess the scale of this crime.

“Thanks to the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, we have already managed to return 1,269 children, 449 over the past year, and 18 children in March this year,” she added.