Russia says it is protecting Ukrainian children, but its occupation authorities have begun convicting them, Ukraine’s ombudsman says

Ukraine's Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, unveiled a report on Russia's alleged crimes against Ukrainian children, titled "Resilient," on November 10. Moscow initially asserted its removal of Ukrainian children for humanitarian reasons, but Lubinets warned that children under Russian occupation face coercion.

Russian occupation authorities have detained children and initiated criminal cases for disloyalty, and some have already been convicted, he stated. Parents are detained automatically if their children refuse to sing the Russian anthem, often under torture, and families deemed especially disloyal face criminal charges, according to Lubinets.

Two verified cases of Ukrainian children being convicted by Russian occupation authorities were highlighted in the report. Lubinets provided two examples, of a boy born in 2007 who disappeared during the occupation and later appeared in a Russian military uniform, and a 16-year-old boy who ended up in a camp for Russian prisoners of war, expressing he had no choice.

The situation is part of a wider trend. In September, an occupation monitor reported the militarization of kindergartens, and a week later, Ukraine returned a teenager from Kherson Oblast who was being added to Russia's military rolls. Russia's figure and Ukraine's Ukraine's Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights presented data stating that at the beginning of 2022, about 1.6 million Ukrainian children in occupied territories faced deportation, forced transfer, and militarization threats.

Throughout 2022, Russian sources claimed more than 744,000 Ukrainian children were taken to Russia, he said. Ukraine has verified 20,651 children as cases of deportation or forced transfer, while the Bring Kids Back UA initiative has returned 2,798 children to date. Lubinets called for sanctions against all Russians involved in deporting, transferring, or militarizing Ukrainian children.

Canada sanctioned eight Russians over September's deportations, and the Netherlands began funding a UN search for the children. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine confirmed Lubinets' 2023 finding that Ukraine's alleged "evacuation" of children was unlawful, determining Russia's deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to be crimes against humanity based on over 1,200 verified cases.