Russia has kidnapped nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children – erasing their cultural identity and heritage 

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced their bipartisan Abducted Ukrainian Children Recovery and Accountability Act.

This legislation would increase support for Ukraine’s efforts to investigate and track the nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted during Putin’s brutal invasion, assist with the rehabilitation and reintegration of children who are returned, and provide justice and accountability for perpetrators of these abductions.

“The mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russia is an atrocity. We cannot accept a world where children are abducted during wartime and used as a form of hostage-taking for negotiations. Our bipartisan legislation will provide the necessary resources to bring them home and hold the perpetrators accountable,” said Klobuchar.

“After he started the largest war in Europe since World War II, Putin kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children to brainwash and Russify them, trying to destroy their cultural identity and heritage. These children should be returned home as soon as possible. Our bipartisan legislation supports critical tools to identify and track the location of these children and reintegrate them into their homeland. We’re also helping hold perpetrators accountable for their atrocities to ensure justice is served,” Grassley said.

This legislation follows a bipartisan resolution that Klobuchar and Grassley led in May condemning Russia’s abduction and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children and demanding their return before reaching a final peace agreement. Additional cosponsors of that resolution include Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rick Scott (R-FL). You can find the full text of the resolution here.

In March, Klobuchar and Grassley were joined by Senator Durbin in leading a bipartisan letter calling for the State Department to continue supporting efforts to investigate Russia’s abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.

To date, Ukrainian authorities have received at least 19,546 confirmed reports of unlawful deportations and forced transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus or Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The abductions aim to erase the children’s Ukrainian names, language and identity. As of April 16, Ukraine and its partners have only managed to return 1,274 abducted children. 

The State Department’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report found Russia recruits or uses child soldiers, has a state-sponsored policy or pattern of human trafficking and is among the worst hubs for human trafficking in the world. 

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