Ukraine confirms abduction of over 19,500 children to Russia

Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets says if authorities were to return one deported child, it would take 55 years to return all of them, he stated during the international conference on human rights "Freedom or Fear"

The Human Rights Commissioner confirmed the gathered data of over 19,000 children being kidnapped by Russian forces during the full-scale war. He, however, assures that state's government has "many initiatives" to return the abducted.

"Unfortunately, we do not have many tools to return all Ukrainian deported children. But we are looking for more and more concrete tools on how we can return our Ukrainian children," the ombudsman said.

Previously, eight more Ukrainian minors were brought back home after remaining in Russian captivity.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russia's Putin in March. It accused him and Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

More than 2,000 children Yale identified were transported to the Dubrava children's center in Belarus' Minsk region between September 2022 and May 2023, it said, while 392 children were taken to 12 other facilities.

Taking children under the age of 18 across a border without the consent of a parent or guardian is prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Once in Belarus, children have been subjected to military training and re-education, and Lukashenko approved the use of state organizations to transport children from Ukraine to Belarus and finance their transportation, the Yale report said.

It is unclear how many of the children identified by Yale's research remain in Belarus. Meanwhile, Russian data says Kremlin authorities backed the so-called "evacuation" from the frontline territories of 400,000 Ukrainian children. Ukrainian data says nearly 20,000 minors have been abducted.