UK sanctions 7 Russians over deportation, indoctrination of Ukrainian children

The U.K. sanctioned seven Russian individuals involved in the forced deportation and re-education of Ukrainian children from occupied territories on Oct. 1, the Ukrainian President's initiative, Bring Kids Back, said on Oct. 2.

Russia is  militarizing Ukrainian children and youth in the occupied territories, removing their Ukrainian identity to "raise future soldiers" and involve them in the fight against their own people.

Russia has abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainian children since the start of the full-scale invasion. As of September 2026, Ukraine's Justice Ministry has officially confirmed 20,610 cases of deportation, though Ukrainian officials estimate the real total could number in the hundreds of thousands.

According to Bring Kids Back's press release, the sanctions target Artur Orlov, head of Russia's Movement of the First, a state-backed organization for children and young people, as well as five heads of its regional branches in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and Crimea.

The Movement of the First was established in 2022 at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has more than 344,600 members in occupied Ukrainian territories, according to a report from an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) expert mission.

The sanctioned officials are Denis Chernobay, Ruyal Aliyev, Aleksey Lavrentyev, Viktoriya Kostromina, and Ekaterina Kozyr.

The list also includes Elena Milskaya, chair of the board of trustees of Russia's National Center for Assistance to Missing and Injured Children. Ukraine's military intelligence agency said Milskaya used the organization's volunteers in October 2022 to facilitate the mass abduction and unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, including orphans, from occupied territories to Russia's Krasnodar Krai via occupied Crimea.

The sanctioned individuals face asset freezes and travel bans, as well as restrictions on trust services and director disqualification. At least three of the seven — Orlov, Chernobay, and Milskaya — have previously been sanctioned by Canada, while Milskaya has also been sanctioned by the European Union.

"These people are already under Canadian sanctions, and now British ones as well. When the same names appear on the lists of different countries, they have fewer places to hide their money or to hide themselves. We call on other partners to align their decisions: there must be no safe jurisdiction left for those who deport and militarize Ukrainian children," Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Sanctions Policy, said.

Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children could constitute an act of genocide, according to the U.N.'s Genocide Convention, which lists "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" as one of the five acts that fall under the definition

In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, for their role in state-sanctioned child abductions.

The U.K. announced the sanctions on Oct. 1 as part of a wider package targeting 31 individuals over Russia's war against Ukraine. The package also includes eight people accused of involvement in arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, including Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

"We are targeting both the revenues that help sustain Russia's aggression and the perpetrators of horrendous crimes against Ukrainian civilians, including children. The UK will not flinch in our support for Ukraine," UK Minister for Europe Lord Wood of Anfield said.