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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin officials supported the forced removal of children from Ukraine, a new report from Yale University alleges, including the use of the agency’s planes and funds for the forced adoption program.
Speaking Tuesday after the release, Ukrainian government officials said they welcomed the report and called on Russia to end its denial of the programs. The new findings come more than a year after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and his commissioner for children over their alleged role in the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The authors plan to present the findings to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
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The report identified 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia for forced adoption and foster care. Once there, many of the children were reportedly naturalized as Russian citizens and put up for adoption in state-sponsored databases — efforts that the report’s lead author described at a news conference on Tuesday as aimed at “erasing” their Ukrainian identity.
At the same press conference, Ukraine’s justice minister said thousands of children have been forcibly removed by Russia since the 2022 invasion. “These numbers will increase,” Olha Stefanishyna said, as Russia consolidates its control over the occupied territories.
