Russia has carried out a "systematic, intentional, and widespread" program of forced adoption and Russification of deported Ukrainian children, according to a study from the Yale School of Public Health published Dec. 3.
Since February 2022, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted from Russian-occupied territories and sent to other Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine or to Russia itself, according to a Ukrainian national database.
The study reported that Russia's Aerospace Forces and military aircraft transported multiple groups of children in 2022 under Russian President Vladimir Putin's orders.
According to researchers, child placement databases in Russia have falsely listed Ukrainian children as if they were born in Russia. Some agencies operating the databases later limited the publicly available data regarding Ukrainian children after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023.
Like the ICC, the Yale researchers determined that Putin and Lvova-Belova ordered and facilitated the system of child deportation and forced assimilation into Russian families.
The study also found that children from Ukraine had been transported to at least 21 regions throughout Russia, and after deportation were subjected to pro-Russia re-education before being placed in Russian families.
Psychologists and mental health professionals are involved in the coerced adoption program to help "legitimize" Russia's human rights abuses with claims that the family placements are medically necessary.
The 314 children identified in the report were all taken from Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Over 60 have been naturalized as Russian citizens since their abduction, the study found.
The data gathered in the study will be presented to the ICC as evidence of Russian war crimes.
(Updated: )
