We often debate difficult issues in Parliament but few matters have shaken me as deeply as the systematic abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian forces. When I stood to open the recent Westminster Hall debate on this very subject, joined by colleagues across the House and with representatives from the Ukrainian parliament in the gallery, it wasn’t just another item on the order paper. It was a moral reckoning.
The scale of this horror is staggering – the verified number of Ukrainian children known to have been forcibly deported or abducted by Russian forces since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022 is 19,546. Independent experts believe the actual numbers to be far higher, even double. And make no mistake, these are not just numbers. They are sons and daughters, sisters and brothers and behind every number is a family ripped apart and an identity wiped.
It is our responsibility, as elected officials and as human beings, to expose this horror, demand accountability, and act with urgency to bring every stolen child home.
The forceable deportation and abduction of these children by Russian troops is state-sponsored child theft masquerading as guardianship, backed by the full machinery of Putin’s brutal regime.
Let me tell you about Margarita. She was just 10 months old when she was taken from a children’s home in Kherson, under the false of needing medical treatment. She ended up in Moscow, adopted by a senior Russian official, a Putin loyalist. Her name was changed. Her birthplace was forged. Her Ukrainian identity? Scrubbed clean.
And then there’s Kira, from Mariupol. At 10, she lost her mother. Then watched her father die, shot by Russian soldiers. Separated from the only family she had left; she was told she’d be sent to a Russian orphanage. Her story might’ve ended there if she hadn’t remembered the phone in her pocket. The call she made then saved her.
These stories are horrifying. But they’re not isolated. They are echoes of a strategy; deliberate, bureaucratised, and unbelievably cruel. Russia isn’t just taking children. It’s reprogramming them. Indoctrination camps, disguised as summer holidays. Military training for kids. Forced adoptions that erase national identity. This is not a war for land. It’s a war for memory, for heritage and for the very soul and future of Ukraine.
I recently co-authored a report with UK Friends of Ukraine entitled Return the Stolen Children of Ukraine. It documents, in chilling detail, how this abduction machine works. From Putin’s personal aircraft transporting children from occupied Donetsk, to the use of education as a tool of erasure. It lays bare the scope of the crime and the complicity and the timeline over which it has been taking place.
These actions are not only war crimes. They may constitute genocide. International law is clear: forcibly transferring children of one group to another with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, that group, is genocide. And it’s time we said that out loud.
As Parliament debated this issue, I called on the British Government to act – not with words, but with deeds. We must:
1. Demand a full list of abducted children from Russia, as required under the Geneva Convention.
2. Expand our intelligence sharing to locate and track every missing child.
3. Increase sanctions – targeted, relentless, biting against every enabler of this state-sponsored erasure.
4. Support international legal action, including investigations, and ensure our allies do the same.
5. Back child rescue operations like Bring Kids Back UA, which has already returned over 1,300 children. But that number must grow. Fast.
6. Raise the profile of this issue – both in terms of the public discourse and in terms of any peace negotiations.
We need more than resolutions. We need results.
And we need voices, yours, mine, ours. This isn’t just about geopolitics. It’s about a childlike Kira and Margarita. It’s about ensuring we don’t become the generation that let this happen under the veil of complexity or diplomacy.
Because history won’t remember the excuses. It will remember who stood up.
Russia may control the narrative in its own borders, but it does not control the truth. And the truth is this: every day we delay, another child forgets their real name. Another family loses hope. Another piece of Ukraine is stolen.
There can be no true peace, no real future for Ukraine, until every stolen child is returned.
