The war in Ukraine is having a devastating impact on the country’s 7.5 million children. As the war in Ukraine continues, humanitarian conditions for children in Ukraine keep deteriorating, UNICEF says. UNRIC has interviewed Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir, Special Envoy of the Council of Europe Secretary General, on the situation of children of Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian foreign ministry data, at least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia or Russian-controlled territory since 2022, and Ukraine has so far succeeded in returning just over 1,850 of them.
– This is a crucial part of any peace negotiations, Gylfadóttir points out. The people going through this are normal human beings. According to testimonies,children are readjusted from the Ukrainian society, forbidden to speak their language, the Russian Federation tells them there is no future where they came from.
As of October 2024, approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children aged 0 to 18 reside in currently primarily Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. Nearly one in five school-age children are also pursuing their education in these territories, according to a new report. The work on tracking and bringing these children back is ongoing.
Raising awareness
Most of the deported children are still in Russia or in the territories occupied by Russia: in some cases, they were forcibly adopted, have new names and were robbed of their identity. The report (The Russian Federation’s Policy on the Eradication of Children’s Identity in the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine: 2024 Overview) concludes that “Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time.”
– The scale of this is something we haven’t seen in our part of the world since the Second World War, says Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir. It is highly disturbing.
Thórdís Gylfadóttir, from Reykjavik, Iceland, is the Special Envoy of the Council of Europe Secretary General on the situation of children of Ukraine since February 2025. She is a lawyer and has been a member of the Icelandic parliament since 2016. Among other appointments most recently, she served as Minister for Foreign Affairs until 2024. Raising awareness around the situation for the deported Ukrainian children and their situation is a big part of Gylfadóttir’s mandate. Earlier this year she visited Ukraine and hopes to go there again next year for another fact-finding mission.
– At the same time as you saw soldiers and buildings that were bombed,you saw kids with their backpacks on the way to school and small flower shops with lights inside and open for business. It was a stark reminder that for the Ukrainian nation life goes on and their fighting spirit is so obvious; they will not surrender but fight for their freedom, Gylfadóttir says about her visit to Ukraine.
Values under attack
She points out that her work includes not only the children within the borders of Ukraine, but also the children residing in bordering and other European countries. When these forcefully displaced children eventually and hopefully will return, it will have consequences on an unprecedented scale, and a lot of effort will be required to bring them back to normal life.
– There needs to be a strong infrastructure, financial support and a reinforced capacity within Ukraine to integrate these children when they return, Gylfadóttir points out. Now we have had one, two or seven kids coming at the time,but when there will be thousands of them? Where these children are now they are forbidden to speak Ukrainian, some indoctrinated and basically told there is no one waiting for them.
When Gylfadottir was offered the position as Special Envoy she did not hesitate, it felt like a continuation of her former work, to protect and speak up for the fundamental values and the fact that they are being under attack. The forcefully deported children are of all ages, starting from infants to older boys who are schooled into the Russian military system.
– Where these children are now, they are forbidden to speak Ukrainian, some indoctrinated and basically told there is no one waiting for them.
Gylfadóttir explains that in parallel with the abductions of the children, Russia has made adoption processes easier, made it easier to change names and erase identities.
She stresses that Europe must stand together with Ukraine in its fight.
– It is strange how history keeps repeating itself. We can not take our freedom for granted. Europe needs to show with determination, confidence and honour that we can be their allies when they protect what is their – and our – freedom.
Fundamentally wrong to steal children
The full-fledged invasion of Ukraine enters its 5th year in 2026. On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights. They are accused of the ‘war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation’.
– Few things are black or white when it comes to politics, but this comes pretty close, says Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir. The world needs to hear about this and how fundamentally wrong it is to steal children. For the civilized world it is our obligation – and it is in our interest – to help them.
Since the onset of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war in Ukraine has caused one of the largest displacement crises globally. As of April 2025, 6.35 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe, with total global displacement estimated closer to 6.8–6.9 million. People, mostly women and children, had fled Ukraine to neighboring countries – mainly to Poland but also to Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia.
GA resolution demanding Russia return Ukrainian children
On Wednesday December 3rd the UN General Assembly demanded by a wide margin that Russia immediately and unconditionally return all Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred or deported since the start of the war.
The draft resolution during the emergency special session was approved by 91 votes in favour, 12 against and 57 abstentions, surpassing the required two-thirds majority of members present and voting.
The resolution expresses deep concern about the fate of Ukrainian children separated from their families since 2014 – when Moscow annexed Crimea – including those transferred within occupied Ukrainian territory and those deported to Russia.
It describes these acts as violations of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the forcible transfer or deportation of protected persons from occupied territory. Read more here.