When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for the mass abduction and forced transfer of Ukrainian children, it was a chilling acknowledgement that Russia’s war in Ukraine is not only about territory or politics. It is about erasing a nation’s identity by targeting its most vulnerable: its children.
According to international investigators, more than 35,000 Ukrainian boys and girls have been stolen from their families, stripped of their names, their language and their heritage, and re-educated to be Russian. Some were taken from state institutions in occupied Ukraine, some from summer “re-education camps,” others after their parents were killed or arrested.
The United Nations has declared these abductions and deportations war crimes. Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab has documented that children as young as four months old have been sent to at least 57 facilities across Russia and Belarus. Many have been placed in Russian families, issued new birth certificates and forced to adopt Russian citizenship.
Some were physically abused or denied contact with their families in Ukraine. In effect, Russia is running a 21st-century program of cultural genocide through child theft.
If you believe in the sanctity of children, in the basic moral law that they should never be pawns of war, this is one of the most shocking crimes imaginable.
Former President Joe Biden said in August 2023, “We are also working with nations everywhere to hold Russian forces accountable for the war crimes and other atrocities they have committed in Ukraine. That includes the forcible removal of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. These children have been stolen from their parents and kept apart from their families. It’s unconscionable. And today, we are announcing new sanctions to hold those responsible for these forced transfers and deportations to account, and to demand that Ukrainian children be returned to their families.”
And yet over the three years of the Russia-Ukraine war, President Trump has said nothing about this egregious war crime, including during his recent warm welcome of Putin in Alaska. While Trump has discussed the worldwide issue of missing children with the president of the European Commission, there is no indication whether they specifically addressed missing Ukrainian children.
And while Melania Trump wrote a letter to Putin, it did not mention the Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia. Rather, it spoke of children in general: “Yet in today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them — a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future. Mr. Putin, you can single-handedly restore their melodic laughter.”
Trump’s silence is not just shameful; it is scandalous. By refusing to acknowledge these atrocities, he signals to Putin that he will not be held accountable for crimes against humanity.
The forced transfer of children has long been recognized as a marker of genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention specifically lists “forcibly transferring children of one group to another group” as one of its five acts constituting genocide.
The ICC indictment of Putin rests precisely on this principle. These are not abstract legal definitions. They are about children losing their families, their names, their country. Imagine your own child or grandchild being kidnapped, given a new identity and told they are someone else, never to return home.
More than 19,000 Ukrainian children have already been confirmed as deported to Russia. Fewer than 1,600 have been returned. Russia has refused to give Ukraine even a basic list of the missing children. Many will never see their parents again. Some will grow up believing they are Russian. That is not simply a war crime. It is cultural erasure.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, according to the Washington Post, the Trump administration terminated a U.S.–funded program that documented Russian war crimes and tracked these abducted children — eliminating key evidence and jeopardizing efforts to hold perpetrators accountable.
A moral leader would condemn this atrocity in the strongest possible terms, mobilize allies to pressure Russia and insist that the return of stolen children be a precondition to any negotiation.
In the long history of war crimes, the theft of children carries unique moral weight. It is a direct assault not just on individuals but on the future of a people. When Trump refuses to even acknowledge it, he places himself on the wrong side of history and humanity. His silence in the face of such a gross atrocity is not neutrality. It is endorsement.
The United States must stand with Ukraine’s stolen children. The world must demand their return. And American citizens must use their voices in defense of such children and against a leader who refuses to defend those Jesus called “the least of these my brothers and sisters.”