Ukraine: Forcibly Deported Children

Leigh Ingham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter). Normally we would congratulate somebody on securing a debate, but on this occasion it is such an absolutely miserable subject that all I can say is that I am as sorry as she is about what is going on. It is ironic that yesterday at 2.30 pm in this Chamber we were debating kinship care and adoption in the UK and British Government support for that. When I first heard about Russia’s “adoption” of Ukrainian children, I wondered whether it was an exaggeration on the part of the people speaking about it, but then we look at the evidence provided and it is absolutely going on.

Independent investigators at the Yale humanitarian research lab identified in March this year 314 individuals from Ukraine who had been placed in Russia’s programme of coerced fostering or adoption. It describes in great detail the circumstances of those 314 children, but the scale is much greater than that. Russia’s children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, has boasted that 700,000 Ukrainian children have been “accepted” into Russia since the war began. Those children are being re-educated in an effort to assimilate them into Russian society. There are at least 57 re-education camps spread across Russian-occupied Ukraine, Belarus and Russia proper.

This is an attempt to eradicate the national identity of Ukrainian children. Videos show children riding around on Belarusian tanks, in body armour and holding rifles. Reports suggest that the children are subjected to psychological coercion, denied their language and indoctrinated with Russian nationalist propaganda. Belarusian President Lukashenko has personally endorsed this so-called “humanitarian project”. Of the nearly 20,000 children recorded as having been taken, little more than 1,000—just 7%—have been recovered. Maria Lvova-Belova is subject to an international arrest warrant, as is President Putin, in relation to this alleged war crime, yet she can be seen on state television describing how proud she is to have adopted a Ukrainian boy from Mariupol.

While the Kremlin has been escalating these abductions, the international response has fallen somewhat short and in some cases has regressed. Just a few weeks ago, the United States Government pulled funding from the conflict observatory based at Yale University. The observatory, which was compiling evidence, had forensically identified satellite imagery and biometric data. It has tracked the identities of 30,000 Ukrainian children taken and their locations. The decision by Trump’s State Department to pull funding has rightly drawn widespread criticism.

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

I was in Helsinki last week as part of my role in the Council of Europe, attending a conference on the deported Ukrainian children, which was incredibly powerful. One of the most powerful things I heard was a gentleman from Yale University speaking of how the removal of funding would impact their vital work. Frankly, they were already doing it on a shoestring. Does the hon. Member agree that as a country we need to prioritise working with other nations to ensure that that work can continue, because it could end next month?

[Richard Foord]

Absolutely. The hon. Member is right that pulling support from the programme is not an act of impartiality; it is an act of complicity. I am sure the State Department of the United States must have done it very reluctantly, given the professionals who work there on the programme.

To summarise, a short reprieve for the programme is not enough. It must be preserved and fully funded, so that we have the evidence needed in the fullness of time to prosecute these potential war crimes.