DISINFO: Russia did not abduct children in Ukraine
SUMMARY
There are no children abducted by Russia, only those rescued by Russian soldiers
The list, which includes 339 names, suggests that “the Ukrainian authorities put on a show.”
In reality, we are talking about dozens of children, and these children are not being kidnapped by anyone. These are children rescued by Russian soldiers at the cost of their own lives, taken out of the war zone at great risk.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aimed at diverting attention from Russia’s documented involvement in abducting Ukrainian children.
In June 2023, the United Nations added Russia to its list of countries that violate children's rights. According to the UN, in the first months after the invasion, Russian armed forces used widespread violence against civilians, including children. In the context of the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the UN verified 2,334 grave violations against 1,482 children, including 91 children who were victims of multiple violations. The UN verified cases of sexual violence by the Russian army against three Ukrainian girls aged between 4 and 17 years in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions (2022).
From 24 February 2022 to 31 December 2024, the UN Human Rights Office verified the deaths of 669 children and injuries to 1,833 children, many of whom were victims of the widespread use of explosive weapons in populated areas. As of December 2024, there were approximately 737,000 internally displaced children in Ukraine.
Another 1.7 million children have become refugees, many of whom have been separated from their parents since the beginning of the war. During the period under review, at least 1,614 Russian air strikes destroyed or damaged schools. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, every seventh school in Ukraine has been damaged as a result of the full-scale invasion. More than 3,500 educational institutions have suffered some kind of destruction, almost 400 have been completely destroyed (2022-2024).
On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Russia's children's ombudsman Lvova-Belova. The ICC stated that the court has compelling evidence that Putin and Lvova-Belova are responsible for the abduction and illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine. These abductions have been documented also by the United Nations, OSCE, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Russian and international journalists, as well as by Russian official’s own admission.
Ukraine has been able to verify Russia’s deportation of 19,546 children to date, although the true figure is likely to be much higher because Russia frequently targets vulnerable children without anyone to speak for them. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab placed the number of deported children closer to 35,000 as of March 19, 2025.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that Russia protects children in Ukraine, that The Ukrainian authorities are forcibly removing children from Krasnoarmeysk, that Ukrainian organisation abandons children forcibly taken from their families, that Ukrainian structures such as White Angel kidnap children from Donbas to accuse Russia, that Accusing Russia of deporting Ukrainian children is groundless, that West falsely accuses Russia of "abducting" Ukrainian children, that Child trafficking in Ukraine: few rescued, many missing, that Ukrainian children are being sold on the Dark Web for sexual slavery and organ harvesting, or that Russia never abducted any Ukrainian children.