Воєнні злочиниRussia is kidnapping Ukrainian kids: Why is this genocide, and how can Ukraine bring them back?

“Ukraine is under attack and millions of children have become victims,” reads the website of Voices of Children, a charitable foundation established in 2019 to provide psychological support to children who survived and have suffered from the traumatic events in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the foundation has had to dramatically expand its activity.

Together with the Kharkiv Institute for Social Research, Voices of Children is conducting research on war crimes committed against children.

The Village Ukraine talks to Andrii Chernousov, a Voices of Children lawyer, about why bringing Ukrainian children back from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea is becoming increasingly difficult, how Russia militarizes children, and why Ukraine has to ratify the Rome Statute.

Children are deported under a number of pretexts: kids who aren’t under parental care are taken by force, simply taken away; kids who live with their families are promised health retreats or better education. The majority of them will have their documents replaced, and Ukrainian citizens come back with Russian passports. Kids are lucky if their parents or relatives can retrieve them – many are yet to be brought back…

All sorts of things happen. Some kids’ parents remain in Ukraine and live off welfare payments. It’s easy for Russians to arrange things with them; often it’s enough to offer them welfare payments. Though even in cases like that we can’t blame the parents for having their children deported and held in the Russian Federation. In some cases, parents think they’re taking care of their kid, they don’t want them to live under constant shelling, or they think going to Russia really might have some health benefits. For the most part, such parents are hostage to their circumstances, to what’s happening in their city or village because of the occupation. Their decisions might be shaped by a number of factors: the lack of information, misunderstanding the situation, poor critical thinking, or inability to predict what might happen. Many can’t evacuate from the occupied territories – and in any case, this is often very dangerous – so people have to make these decisions under pressure.

The [Voices of Children] foundation’s hotline receives a lot of calls from the deported children’s parents and relatives, who can’t travel to retrieve their kid from Crimea or the Russian Federation. Some are afraid to go there because the Russians check everyone who crosses the border, and some people have a spouse in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so they know they can’t go… Sometimes we get calls from children who can’t escape because they’re minors, and their parents actually [sided with Russia] and are waiting for the arrival of the Russian world [Russkiy mir, literally ‘Russian world’ or ‘Russian order’, is the concept of the total domination of Russian culture over other cultures; it gives rise to and ‘legitimizes’ Russia’s current expansionist, colonial politics - ed.]... International law tries to protect kids by restricting their movement without their parents’ permission. But sadly, in this case, such protections only prevent us from being able to help them. And it’s a real tragedy… There is so far no official mechanism to help address these situations on the state level. I don’t mean this as a criticism. It’s just to say that we need to find legal mechanisms to put pressure on Russia with regard to the deported children.

After a group of children were brought back to Ukraine recently, Kuleba [Mykola Kuleba, Ombudsman for Children with the President of Ukraine in 2014–2021 and the CEO of Save Ukraine, an NGO working, among other things, to bring back Ukrainian children - ed.] said that the children who were brought back had had to go through hours of interrogations conducted by the Russian Federal Security Service. It used to be easier to bring kids back, some of them fled [from Russia] themselves. I worry that now this might be a lot more difficult. During war, things are quite volatile, everything’s changing fast, and the mechanisms that had worked in the past might not work now.

Kids have a greater chance of coming back to Ukraine if their parents have pro-Ukrainian views. What we have now is a very volatile situation.

The International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova [Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation - ed.] was very important. Deportation of Ukrainian children is a top-level issue.

This means that sooner or later, during negotiations, children will become a bargaining chip. We have to bring back as many children as possible to prevent [the Russian Federation] from using our kids in this way.

They’re not even hiding it. [Militarizing children] is part of what they’re calling “patriotic education”.

Youth and children movements and organizations like Youth Army, Movement of the First, and Big School Break, have representatives in every Russian school, and parents are forced to send their children to attend from as early as six years old. This imposes military education on children, instead of developing their skills and abilities, which is what democratic states tend to prioritize. In Crimea, they’ve been practicing this since 2014, but our country hasn’t paid very much attention to it – we must’ve had other issues to deal with.

Replacing documents, forcibly issuing Russian passports, propaganda – these are all aspects of the crime of genocide. These actions are effectively aimed at obliterating Ukrainian identity.

How can we prove this? It’s difficult. That’s why the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has said that they don’t have sufficient evidence to say that the crime of genocide is being committed. But the UN apparatus is very rigorous. It’s digging deep, and slowly gathering more and more evidence.

But international justice doesn’t work without national justice working first. It’s wrong to think that Karim Khan [International Criminal Court Prosecutor - ed.] or the Hague will come to Ukraine and bring anyone to justice. If we don’t do our homework, there will be no justice.

A key aspect of this homework is acceding to the Rome Statute. Ukraine has partially recognised its validity in relation to the crimes committed during the Revolution of Dignity [when government-backed forces attacked protesters, killing over 100 of them - ed.] and Russia’s full-scale invasion. But for accountability mechanisms to work in full force, the statute has to be ratified.

Yes, I know why our state is afraid to do so. [If it accedes to the Rome Statute, Ukraine will have to bring to justice Ukrainian soldiers who had committed war crimes and other international crimes - ed.] Sadly, we have problems of our own, but who doesn’t? Still, if we want to hold Russian soldiers accountable, if we’re calling on the world to bring Putin and other Russian military-political leaders to justice – then we have to ratify the Rome Statute. This has to be done if we want the accountability mechanism to work properly. To show everyone that we will also bear full responsibility. This will be a powerful step towards the rule of law. This is about our country’s image and our willingness to bear full responsibility.