Under international law, infants, toddlers and teenagers who have an inherent right to life must be protected during wars and not moved to an enemy state.
But since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Russians have treated Ukrainian children more like prisoners of war and pawns in President Vladimir Putin‘s effort to forge a new Russian empire.
About 20,000 children have been abducted from their families by Russia, the Ukrainian government has verified. That number is likely well into the six figures now, but it’s difficult to get information out of occupied Ukraine, and the Russians aren’t helping.
Moscow has sent some teens to Russian camps where they’re brainwashed to forget their nationality and receive military training. Some teens have told us that they’re encouraged to take up arms against their home country.
One boy, who was 16 when abducted, said he refused to sing the Russian national anthem, which was required each morning, and was thrown into solitary confinement four times. Fortunately, after nearly a year he managed to escape the camp, aided by Save Ukraine, a group that has rescued 630 children.
The teen, whose first name is Rostyslav ‒ we can’t use his last name for fear of reprisals against his family ‒ tells his compelling story in our documentary “A Faith Under Siege,” which will premiere May 10 on the Christian Broadcasting Network News.
Along with the teens, the younger children suffer from having been torn away from their families, including some who were turned into orphans by Russians who killed their parents.
At least those children are still alive. Five boys and two girls have been “summarily executed” in Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine, meaning they were accused of crimes and not even given a trial, according to a United Nations report.
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As early as February 2023, a year after Russia’s invasion, thousands of children were already shipped to 43 reeducation camps across Russia, including in Siberia and a city near the Pacific Ocean, nearly 4,000 miles from the Ukrainian border. At the camps, the children are forced to attend Russian schools, where they’re forbidden from speaking their native language and are taught from new textbooks to love Russia and hate Ukraine and the West.
Yet indoctrinating children in schools isn’t enough for the Kremlin. They want to make them Russian citizens, and Russia does so by forcing Ukrainian orphans to get Russian passports. Once they do, returning to Ukraine, even to their extended families, would violate Russian law against international “adoptions.”
Russia’s actions are a gruesome reminder of Nazi Germany’s effort in World War II to turn about 200,000 Polish children into Aryans – a move that was considered a war crime.
In 2023, based on the abductions, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of war crimes. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the commissioner claimed that parents with children voluntarily left war-torn parts of Ukraine, and that Russia brought in 2,000 orphans and abandoned children, all for humanitarian reasons.
Because Russia is not a party to the ICC, neither Putin nor the commissioner has been arrested.
Russia’s war is not just about seizing children and territory from Ukraine. It’s also a spiritual war against any religion that is not controlled by the Kremlin. The Russians have damaged or destroyed at least 630 churches and killed 48 religious leaders as of 2024, a number that constantly grows.
Merely saying you’re an evangelical or praying in front of a Russian can lead to torture, as our documentary shows.
In August 2014, when Russia illegally seized Luhansk, Donbas and Crimea from Ukraine, Viktor Chernaiivsky, who was evacuating people, was captured and thrown into detention. In his cell, he prayed with other prisoners. A priest heard about that and said “because I am an evangelical Christian, he has to cast out demons from me,” Chernaiivsky recounted. After that, “they tased me with electricity, and they hit me with baseball bats … and they were simulating shooting at me, as well.”
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In an occupied Ukrainian city, Russians cut down the cross outside a church and raised their own flag instead, closing the church to worshippers. “Russia is trying to replace God with the Russian state,” said the documentary narrator.
Why are evangelicals so hated by the Russians? “Our churches never want to be under government, under Communist Party, under KGB,” evangelical leader Pavlo Unguryan said. “We have just one leader. It’s Jesus Christ.”
The film’s most tragic scenes involve fathers coping with family deaths. One father lost his wife and baby son. Another lost his wife and all three children. “I don’t know how I will live without them,” he said.
Yet in the midst of despair, the documentary provides vivid examples of how the Ukrainians and their religions will survive. After Russian rockets destroyed a church, Ukrainians were clearing away the rubble and working to rebuild what they had lost.
Still, their most dreadful losses are the thousands of abducted Ukrainian children who are stuck in Russia. If Putin truly wanted peace, he would already be sending children back home.
Ukrainians are ready for the war to end, but any peace agreement must return those children to their true families.
Steven Moore, a former congressional chief of staff who moved to Ukraine on Day 5 of the war, is founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project and executive producer of the documentary “A Faith Under Siege.” Colby Barrett, a Colorado-based entrepreneur, farmer and former Marine, is a producer of the documentary.
Russia abducts Ukrainian kids and treats them like prisoners of war. Save them. | Opinion – USA Today
