Russia’s deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children since its full-scale invasion amount to crimes against humanity, a United Nations investigation concluded on March 10, 2026. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said “crimes against humanity and war crimes by Russian authorities have targeted children,” with consequences it described as irreversible.
The commission, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, was due to present its report to the council in Geneva later that week.
Most children have never returned
Investigators examined 1,205 cases of children deported or transferred from five Ukrainian regions. In 80 percent of those cases, the children have still not returned to Ukraine. The commission said the deportations came from many locations across occupied territory and followed a well-established pattern, making them both widespread and systematic.
New findings confirmed the removal of 995 children from 11 residential care institutions in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions shortly before the full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia called this an “evacuation,” but the commission found it was not temporary, as international law requires, and was carried out without the consent of parents, guardians or Ukrainian authorities.
Coordinated at the highest level
According to the commission, Russian authorities at the highest level, including President Vladimir Putin and the structures under him, coordinated the deportations according to a plan prepared before the invasion. Children were first taken to transit centers in Russia or occupied Ukraine, then spread across 21 Russian regions, where they were placed with families or in institutions, given Russian citizenship and entered into adoption or foster care databases.
The commission also found that Russia committed the crime of enforced disappearance by failing to tell families where their children were and obstructing their return. Many parents spent months or years without knowing their children’s whereabouts. “I am still looking for my daughter,” one mother told investigators.
The wider picture
Ukrainian authorities say Russia has deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus. About 1.6 million children remain in occupied parts of Ukraine, and the true number of deportations is unknown because humanitarian access is limited. Russia denies taking children against their will and says it evacuated people voluntarily from the war zone.
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