US Senate urges Biden administration to help Ukrainian children deported to Russia

This was stated by Democrat Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of the US Agency for International Development Samantha Power to focus on the problem of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, he emphasized the need to impose sanctions against those involved in the deportation and illegal adoption of these children in Russia.

The senator also referred to the report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine – established by the United Nations Human Rights Council. According to the report, published in March 2023, thousands of children have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

"As you are well aware, forced deportation of children in war is not only deeply abhorrent – a traumatizing nightmare that will do irreparable harm even to those children who are returned – but is also a war crime. Among all civilian groups impacted by the war, children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking, sexual exploitation, abduction, and illegal adoption," Menendez emphasized.

He added that the United States should help children who have experienced the trauma of separation. According to him, rapid family reunification and help in overcoming the horror will reduce the likelihood of long-term traumatic effects.

Menendez also called on the Biden administration to intensify cooperation with a number of international organizations, including the International Criminal Court, which in March 2023 issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. In his opinion, the United States will be able to provide the court with information about Russian war crimes.

In addition, the senator suggested that the White House allocate resources to civic and humanitarian organizations to search for deported Ukrainian children, reunite them with their families, and provide them with psychological assistance.

Deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia

In the context of a full-scale invasion, Russia is deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine on a massive scale. They are being taken to the occupied Crimea, Russia, or Belarus, allegedly for rehabilitation or to rest in camps.

In March, the International Criminal Court  issued an arrest warrant for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

On May 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that he knew of more than 19,300 children who had been deported by the Russians. On May 29, Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke at an informal meeting of the UN Security Council on the abduction of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia. The ombudsman said that Russia deliberately changes legislation to make it impossible for Ukrainian children to return home and uses, among other things, the forced change of their citizenship to Russian.

Lubinets also noted that Russia does not provide any data on Ukrainian deported children - it is not even known where they are and in what conditions. He also said that Russians use child labor and militarize Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories. 

On June 8, a US Senate committee supported a draft resolution condemning the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia and calling the Russians' actions genocide. Later, evidence emerged of Belarus' involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children. On June 27, the Belarusian opposition submitted to the International Criminal Court evidence of the involvement of self-proclaimed head of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and his entourage in war crimes.

The State Duma of the Russian Federation stated that 700,000 Ukrainian children had been deported to Russia since 2014.

On July 6, Ukraine returned home two children deported by Russia. Their mother, a combat medic, was released as part of a large exchange in October 2022. A week later, Ukraine took back from Russian occupation two children who were separated from their parents on the first day of the full-scale invasion.

On July 13, the National Resistance Center reported that since the start of July, Russian forcess took about 280 children from the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to the Russian republic of Kalmykia.