Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, take part in a signing ceremony at in Kyiv, Ukraine on Aug. 24.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that he and Prime Minister Mark Carney will co-host an event during United Nations General Assembly proceedings in New York this month to shine a spotlight on the plight of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.
Russia has taken and forcibly deported at least 19,000 Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-occupied territories since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022, according to Ukrainian and international organizations.
In an interview, Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, called what’s happened “the single largest kidnapping since World War Two.”
The Ukrainian government’s official count of missing children, published in 2023, is at least 19,000, but Mr. Raymond said rough internal updated estimates from his organization suggest as many as 35,000 have been abducted.
On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky announced on his Telegram channel that he and Mr. Carney will host a high-level event dedicated to the disappeared children. “Many leaders will join us,” the President said.
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Only 1,605 children have been repatriated from Russia or Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, according to the Ukrainian government’s “Bring Kids Back” website.
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Mr. Carney and Mr. Zelensky will co-host the event – a gathering of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. The event will take place Sept. 23, Mr. Carney’s office said.
The Canadian government and Ukraine are co-chairs of the coalition, which advocates for the children’s repatriation. More than 40 countries have joined since it was founded in 2024.
Mr. Raymond said his organization has found evidence Russia has enrolled some of the older abducted children in formal military combat training, while some of the younger ones are undergoing militarization as part of Moscow’s “re-education programs, which include military history and parade drills.”
In a recent statement, Canada’s Department of Global Affairs said that Russia, through this mass deportation of Ukrainian children, is trying to “erase children’s Ukrainian identity by restricting access to the Ukrainian language and history, limiting alternative sources of information, and forcibly imposing Russian citizenship.” Ottawa said investigative reports also show Russia has changed the names and recorded places of birth of some children in its care.
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In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, citing reasonable grounds to believe they each bear responsibility for the war crime of “unlawful deportation of population (children) and of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
Last year, then-prime-minister Justin Trudeau accused Moscow of committing “an element of genocide” by taking Ukrainian children.
Earlier this year, Mr. Zelensky told media that Russia had proposed swapping the abducted children for Russian prisoners of war captured by Ukraine.
The matter is part of the Donald Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia on a peace deal to stop the war in Ukraine. The return of the children “is a subject at the top of all lists,” the U.S. President said in August. Mr. Trump gave Mr. Putin a letter from his wife, Melania Trump, during their Alaskan summit last month, urging him to agree to peace for the sake of the children affected by Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and others, including Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal and Amy Klobuchar, on Thursday introduced a bill calling for the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. If Moscow failed to do so, the legislation proposes, Russia would be declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
On social media Thursday, Mr. Zelensky said he received the U.S. special presidential envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in Kyiv, and their discussions included the return of abducted Ukrainian children, “international co-operation on this track, and the conditions in which our children are being held.”