Russia has stolen 1.6 million children from occupied Ukraine since 2014, advocates say
By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press:
Published August 3, 2026
UKRAINE (BP) – In Russia’s catalogue of kidnapped Ukrainian children, prospective guardians can choose preferred hair and eye color, and specify their intended form of guardianship. Teenage girls are photographed in seductive adult attire.“It’s pure human trafficking,” said a representative of Save Ukraine, the leading organization working to rescue Ukraine’s children Russia has kidnapped.
Typically, young boys are trained as Russian military to likely fight against their own country, and girls are prostituted – forced into marriages – as early as 13 to produce large Russian families.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has ushered in a war on Ukrainian children and families, encompassing the kidnapping and “Russification” of children to alleviate a decreasing birthrate in Russia, where there were nearly 400 abortions for every 1,000 live births in 2020.
The kidnappings amount to genocide, advocates said, citing the Genocide Convention and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
