2,000 Ukrainian children brought home, Zelensky announces: “Thousands are still being held captive by Russia, becoming victims of its crimes every day”
Volodymyr Zelensky at the Federal Chancellery Berlin, Germany, December 2025. Credit line: Chris Emil Janssen / imago stock&people / Profimedia
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that 2,000 Ukrainian children had been brought back home from Russia and Russian-occupied territories since the start of the war, but warned that thousands of children were still “captive”, according to AFP.
Kiev accuses Russia of deporting more than 19,500 children from Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Ukrainian authorities claim that Russia indoctrinated them, forced many of them to convert to Russian citizenship and tried to erase their Ukrainian identity, allegations supported by the testimony of Ukrainians who managed to escape Russian occupation, but denied by Moscow.
“Today we achieved a significant result – two thousand Ukrainian children brought home from Russian control,” Ukraine's president said in a social media post.
“The road ahead remains long and difficult. Thousands of Ukrainian children are still being held captive by Russia, becoming victims of its crimes every day,” added Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russia does not deny taking Ukrainian children, but says it did so for their own safety by moving them away from the conflict, and that it is willing to return them in cases where relatives come forward and can be verified.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court indicted Vladimir Putin for “illegal deportation of children” and “illegal transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a London-based think tank. The arrest warrant targets both the Russian president and the Russian presidential commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
The first lady of the USA, Melania Trump, also got involved in the repatriation efforts, who in August 2025 wrote to Vladimir Putin about the difficult situation of Ukrainian children who were separated from their families because of the war.
Russia announces repatriation of children and thanks Melania Trump. The message sent by the commissar to Putin
