Bipartisan US congressional body, the Helsinki Commission, expresses alarm about the Kremlin’s plan to transfer 50,000 Ukrainian children to Russia.

May 7, 2025

Bipartisan leaders of the US Congressional body known as the Helsinki Commission, on Tuesday, expressed alarm about Russian officials’ announcements that the Kremlin would transfer 50,000 Ukrainian children from the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine to camps or Russian schools for “summer vacation.”

“This would mark a concerning escalation in Russia’s campaign to abduct and Russify Ukrainian children,” said Commission leaders Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), as well as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) in a joint statement.

Last month, the Ukrainian National Resistance Center announced on Telegram that the Kremlin was preparing a new wave of deportation of 50,000 Ukrainian children from the occupied Donetsk region to Russia under the pretense of offering them a “vacation.”

Ukrainian authorities estimated by 2023 that as many as 20,000 Ukrainian children had been forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. They, as well as children living in Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions, have been subjected to Russification in an apparent effort to erase their Ukrainian identity; older boys have been forced to fight with the Russian military against their own country. 

 As of March 2025, only 1,236 Ukrainian children have been returned from Russia, according to official records. 

“We condemn Russia’s scheme to force even more Ukrainian children into reeducation camps or send them to Russia under the guise of providing a holiday break,” the Helsinki Commission leaders said in their Tuesday statement, highlighting that Ukrainian children in areas of Ukraine illegally occupied by Russia already are subject to Russification in school.

“Teenage boys abducted to Russia face forced military indoctrination and conscription. These acts are a serious violation of international law and amount to war crimes and genocide,” the lawmakers added.

“Russia must stop these criminal acts – the protection of Ukrainian children living in occupied territories and the return of those forcibly taken to Russia and Russian-controlled areas should be at the forefront of any peace plan,” the joint statement concludes. 

Russian authorities have openly registered more than 700,000 Ukrainian children within Russia. Yet the Kremlin has refused to provide information on children taken to Russia and instead has changed names and citizenship to conceal its actions.

Speaking to Kyiv Post Tuesday night, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, the co-Chairman of the Helsinki Commission and one of the Republican Party’s most reliable allies to Ukraine, described Russia’s actions against Ukrainian children as genocide.

“Kidnapping, relocation, and re-education of children from their home country to another is a form of genocide. That’s what Russia is engaging in,” the Congressman said.

Under the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism, independent experts reported that Russia’s transfer of children and their subjection to pro-Russian targeted re-education constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law and in certain cases could amount to a war crime.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52151