Воєнні злочиниWhy a 6,000-page book on deportation of Ukrainian children is being shown in EU countries

Crime Without Punishment, with its literary reference to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, bills itself as a “New Russian Classic”, according to the inscription on its cover. It was conceived by Bickerstaff.111, a Ukrainian creative agency, and the Ukrainian Leadership Academy to draw attention to the fact that the Russian Federation is deporting Ukrainian children. The book weighs 50 kilograms, though its authors insist they’re not done yet. It has been displayed at events in several European cities, as well as during NATO and European Parliament events as part of an advocacy campaign.

The Village Ukraine talks to Illia Anufriienko, creative director at Bickerstaff.111, and Yevheniia Mateichuk, acting head of the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, about what prompted them to launch their campaign, the data collection process, and the reaction in Europe to what has so far added up to some 40 volumes of records of Russian war crimes.

Deciding to focus on the deportation of Ukrainian children

The Ukrainian Leadership Academy knew they wanted to organize an advocacy campaign in Europe before they knew what its focus would be. Yevheniia Mateichuk, the academy’s acting head, says public campaigns can influence politicians’ decision-making.

At first the academy turned to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for advice: “We had to focus on an issue that Ukraine is already promoting in Europe; it had to be in demand, it had to be on people’s minds. At first we wanted to focus on ecocide, but then we realized that the deportation of Ukrainian children was a very sensitive issue that illuminates the tragedy of this genocidal war against Ukraine.”

The International Criminal Court’s ruling concerning the deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia was decisive in determining the campaign’s direction. In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

In a recent article, we explained how the deportation of Ukrainian children became the grounds for Putin’s arrest warrant, and why it is a genocidal practice.

A ruling concerning deported children was the first one to be handed down during the Nuremberg trials. The case of deported Ukrainian children might similarly serve as a first step towards the creation of an international tribunal for the crimes committed by the Russian Federation, Mateichuk adds.

“No international mechanisms exist to bring back the deported children [the possibility of creating such mechanisms was discussed during a Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik on 16 May - ed.]. It is also difficult to establish who exactly the deported children are: they are given new names and dates of birth; they might end up in one of the 43 filtration camps. But volunteers find ways to reach those kids and bring them back. Not all parents are able to retrieve their children from Russia; in some cases, both of a kid’s parents are in the military, and it’s pretty obvious what a risk it is for them to cross the Russian border,” Mateichuk explains.

After deciding, together with the Foreign Ministry, on the focus, the Ukrainian Leadership Academy consulted Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleksandr Korniienko, and Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets to figure out who else was working on the issue of deportation, and what the official statistics regarding this war crime said. According to official Ukrainian data, as of today, 19,392 Ukrainian children have been deported.

The organizers decided that the campaign should take place in cities and countries that are far from Ukraine and have an ambivalent position regarding the Russian war against Ukraine, as well as cities where European institutions are headquartered: Strasbourg (France), Brussels (Belgium), Bonn (Germany), Köln (Germany), and Vienna (Austria). It made no sense to hold the campaign in a country like Poland, where a demonstration was held instead to thank Polish people for their support and to encourage them to continue supporting Ukraine, Mateichuk explains.

Once the idea was born, the Ukrainian Leadership Academy turned to Bickerstaff.111, a creative agency, who came up with a concept and brought it to life in just two weeks. Illia Anufriienko, the agency’s creative director, says: “The deadline was extremely tight, but it’s not our first time; we’ve worked on lots of campaigns. When the Ukrainian Leadership Academy asked us to join the project, we felt we were up to it. The most difficult thing for us was to talk about a familiar topic in a new way. Ukraine’s narratives in foreign media are often repetitive, so we had to create a story that could bring to light one of our greatest challenges in a new way.”

A website for the Crime Without Punishment campaign, launched by the Bickerstaff.111 creative agency and still being updated with new evidence and research, recounts the surprise and disbelief of printers when confronted with the book’s length.

“We wanted to have a material representation of the scale of Russian crimes. For example, the evidence used in the Hague’s court judgment amounted to 40 volumes, or 10,000 pages,” Mateichuk explains.

“Russian crimes are something that exists in people’s imaginations, especially in Europe. People in Ukraine live through these crimes every day and every night, but in Europe it’s not as clear-cut. The 6,000 pages [we put together] is the smallest number for a case like this. We talked to people who handle cases like this. The total number of pages might reach 10,000 or even 12,000, but we didn’t want to present material that wasn’t rooted in evidence. It’s important for us that when all the case files are declassified, the number of pages in our book will match the number of pages in those cases,” Anufriienko says.

Not all 6,000 of the book’s pages contain text or images. Over 90% of cases concerning the deportation of Ukrainian children have been classified, so the majority of the pages in the book are blurred. Those pages are there to mark the fact that crimes have taken place, but have not yet been solved. They indicate that the book is a work in progress. In fact, “in progress” is inscribed on the book itself, Anufriienko explains.

The book’s first 20–30 pages, however, contain publicly disclosed data obtained for the most part from the declassified database provided by the Hague. Research conducted by Yale University and information from Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner constitute other key sources.

Small versions of the book have also been put together and given to people working in European institutions: Ukrainian Leadership Academy students held over 20 meetings across Europe, in addition to public events they organized.

“It’s important that people in Europe find out about ordinary people’s stories”

The team had to lug the 50-kilogram book around with them as they traveled by bus to five European cities. They brought a small table and a bell jar in case it would rain during open-air events. The book was the main focus of the events, and the main way to attract people’s attention.

Though the organizers struggled with putting on the events in two cities: Köln and Brussels. They had to go through local police, explaining to them how the event would unfold. “They said we could only hold our event on a certain date, but we were just planning to be in that city on the day we were there, and were then going to travel on. In Ukraine, legislation around peaceful assemblies like this is more democratic; only the court can ban an event, police can only issue recommendations. On the other hand, this European red tape helps root out corruption,” Yevheniia Mateichuk from the Ukrainian Leadership Academy says.

She stresses that it was important not only to discuss the deportation of Ukrainian children but to get the locals involved in a wider conversation – for example, to talk about civilians that Russian forces are currently holding hostage. Ukrainian students also told people in Europe about their own experience of living through the war. “It’s important that people in Europe learn about ordinary people’s stories. We wanted as many people as possible to hear them,” Mateichuk explains.

“We chose the locations really well; the events took place on weekends, and the squares were full of people. The only place where there might have been fewer people was Strasbourg. One of the events lasted around two hours; each student talked to about 40 people in that time. There were 55 students aged 16–20 from across Ukraine. They all wore khaki-colored t-shirts that said Ukrainians Love Freedom,” Mateichuk recalls.

People in European cities responded differently: some took photos but didn’t engage further, others remained totally indifferent. Others still approached the students, gave them hugs, and expressed their support for Ukraine. “In Köln, the Russians tried to disrupt the event. They started asking, in English, where we got our facts from, and made a TikTok video [of the altercation]. We just told them that they had no business standing next to us. We knew ahead of time that we might encounter something like that, since it was a public event,” says Mateichuk.