(Editor’s Note: The authors contributed to the legal analysis in the report described in this article and consulted with Yale University School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab throughout the report’s preparation. Readers can learn more about the report on the Just Security Podcast here.)
Today, the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab released a new report detailing evidence of Russia’s system of coerced deportation and naturalization, reeducation, fostering, and adoption of Ukrainian children. The researchers at the Humanitarian Research Lab – which uses open-source information to document humanitarian crises throughout the world – drew on a variety of sources, including commercially available satellite imagery, verified open-source media, Russia’s own child placement databases, and Russian government documents and communications. Based on this information, the researchers identified 314 individual Ukrainian children that Russian officials transferred from Ukraine to Russia for coerced adoption and fostering, acts that constitute grave violations of international law.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the war crimes of unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. The new Humanitarian Research Lab report adds evidence that the Russian Federation has engaged in the systematic, intentional, and widespread coerced adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine. The evidence could lead to additional charges against Putin, Lvova-Belova, and other officials involved in the extensive forced relocation program for war crimes and crimes against humanity. While the acts described in the report likely would not provide the sole basis for criminal charges of genocide, the report’s findings could, together with additional evidence, support a broader case of genocide. The actions also likely violate Russia’s obligations as a State Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
New Details on the Coerced Deportation of Children from Ukraine to Russia
The new report builds on the Humanitarian Research Lab’s prior report, released on Feb. 14, 2023, describing the Russian effort to carry out the systematic deportation of Ukraine’s children. (The February 2023 report was followed in November 2023 by a report on Belarus’ collaboration with Russia.) The February 2023 report found that more than 6,000 children between the ages of four months and 17 years had been transported to 43 Russian-operated camps and facilities since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. The transferred children underwent political reeducation and in some cases were prevented from returning to Ukraine. The February 2023 report was almost immediately followed by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement that the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC had approved arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova – the first warrants issued in the ICC investigation into the situation in Ukraine.
Today’s report is among the most detailed and comprehensive public efforts taken to date to track Ukrainian children subject to Russia’s systematic deportation. It offers new details tracing the framework of governmental actions, laws, procedures, and systems that have enabled Russia to relocate children from Ukraine to Russia in a targeted program of coerced adoption and fostering of those children with Russian citizens.
The report identifies and chronicles the experiences of 314 individual Ukrainian children subject to Russia’s program of relocation, guardianship, adoption, and fostering. It tracks their passage from the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) to midpoint locations in Russia before they were placed with Russian citizens or placed in institutions and listed on Russia’s adoption databases. It shows that Russian Federation-flagged military transport planes under the direct control of Putin’s office transported groups of children from Ukraine. It describes how Russian Federation-controlled databases obfuscated Ukrainian children’s identities, including their nationality, in order to facilitate their placement with Russian families and to conceal the government’s program of coerced adoption and fostering. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab team created dossiers of each child identified in the report containing detailed identification for the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP).
Legal Significance of the Report’s Findings
This latest report has substantial implications for ongoing and future legal accountability efforts seeking to address Russian-perpetrated atrocities in Ukraine. The findings could position the ICC Prosecutor to levy additional charges against Putin, Lvova-Belova, and other Russian officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. (The ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Ukraine, because Ukraine accepted the Court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on Ukrainian territory with two declarations in April 2014 and September 2015.) The details presented in the report also may provide evidence that could, together with additional evidence, support a broader case of genocide. The unlawful actions also likely constitute violations of Russia’s obligations as a State Party to the CRC.
War Crimes
The ICC has already issued arrest warrants against Putin and Lvova-Belova for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of a population (children) and unlawful transfer of a population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. This report provides new and more detailed evidence to support those charges. It also potentially subjects additional Russian officials involved in the unlawful deportation detailed in the report to war crimes charges.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions (GCs) and their Additional Protocols (APs) established an extensive framework of rules and protections intended to limit the collateral effects of armed conflict and protect civilians not participating in hostilities. These protections include a prohibition on the forced movement, transfer, or deportation of civilians in international armed conflicts – subject to limited exceptions under international law. Codifying these principles, the Rome Statute – the treaty that created and governs the ICC – establishes the corresponding war crime of “unlawful deportation or transfer” (Article 8(2)(a)(vii)) under ICC jurisdiction.
The war crime of “unlawful deportation or transfer” involves five elements: (1) The perpetrator deported or transferred one or more persons to another State or to another location; (2) such person or persons were protected under one or more of the Geneva Conventions of 1949; (3) the perpetrator was aware of the factual circumstances that established that protected status; (4) the conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an international armed conflict; and (5) the perpetrator was aware of factual circumstances that established the existence of an armed conflict. As detailed in the new report, the Russian Federation’s systematic transfer of Ukrainian children to Russian territory to undergo a targeted program of coerced reeducation, fostering, and adoption meets all five elements.
According to the report, Russia has seized at least 314 children in Ukraine. Russia collaborated with occupation authorities to then transfer these children to Russia to place them with citizens of Russia or in State-run institutions where they were later listed on Russian adoption databases. The Ukrainian children in Russian custody qualify as “protected persons” as established by Article 4 of GCIV, which defines protected persons as those persons who “find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.” The targeted program of coerced reeducation, fostering, and adoption took place in the context of the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the officials involved in the program were aware of those circumstances.
The report found that once the children were in Russia, the Kremlin refused to release critical identification information for the children to authorities, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Central Tracing Agency (CTA), and deliberately concealed the children’s national identities. This refusal grossly violates the API Article 78(3) prescription requiring the transmission of identification information to the CTA. The intentional obfuscation of critical identification information and the naturalization of Ukrainian children further contributes to the war crime of unlawful transfer or deportation by facilitating the permanent relocation and absorption of Ukraine’s children into Russia during an international armed conflict – actions undertaken with the Russian perpetrators’ awareness of the children’s protected status within the context of an international armed conflict.
While international law permits narrow exceptions to the prohibition on non-consensual transfers during armed conflict, such as allowing parties to evacuate children for “compelling reasons” of health or medical treatment, Russia’s actions do not fulfill the requirements for these exceptions. By forcibly transferring Ukrainian children into Russian systems of reeducation and coerced adoption and fostering, the Russian government has failed to uphold its legal obligations to relocate the separated children to a neutral country and to prevent family separations in cases where guardians are known – two parameters required by GCIV Articles 24 and 49 as well as API Article 78 (to which Russia and Ukraine are State Parties) for permissible temporary child evacuations.
Moreover, international law requires that the occupying power arrange for the continuation of separated children’s education during evacuations “as far as possible” by “persons of a similar cultural tradition” (GCIV Article 24). The parties must also refrain from changing the child’s personal status, including her or his nationality (GCIV Article 50). In addition, all relocations must be intended to be temporary. The Russian institutions that received Ukrainian children have subjected the children to pro-Russian reeducation programs with the goal of “Russification.” This, in combination with Russia’s naturalization of Ukrainian children to erase their national identity and enable their permanent placement with Russian families, flagrantly contravenes GCIV’s safeguards in cases of permitted child evacuations.
Crimes Against Humanity
Russia is prohibited under customary international law from committing crimes against humanity and its officials are liable for any such crimes committed in Ukraine under the Rome Statute. The United Nations General Assembly, through the endorsement of international legal principles recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the International Law Commission have incorporated the crime against humanity of deportation as a principle of customary international law. Article 7 of the Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity to include the “deportation or forcible transfer of population” if “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” The crime includes the “forced displacement” of people “by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present without grounds permitted under international law.”
The ICC evaluates five elements to determine whether the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer of population has been committed: (1) The perpetrator deported or forcibly transferred, without grounds permitted under international law, one or more persons to another State or location, by expulsion or other coercive acts; (2) such person or persons were lawfully present in the area from which they were so deported or transferred; (3) the perpetrator was aware of the factual circumstances that established the lawfulness of such presence; (4) the conduct was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population; and (5) the perpetrator knew that the conduct was part of or intended the conduct to be part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. As today’s report explains, Russia’s actions meet all five of these elements.
First, Russia has forcibly transferred children through coercive acts without grounds permitted under international law. According to the ICC’s Elements of Crimes, forcible transfer includes both physical force and the “threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power against such person or persons or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment.” The report details 314 children, the majority of which have been taken from institutions in occupied regions and put into Russia’s foster and adoption system. It also reveals how, through coercion and duress, Russia has encouraged and orchestrated the movement of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-occupied territory. As explained above, despite Russian posturingas a benevolent actor promoting child welfare, there are no grounds under international law that permit Russia’s coerced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The second and third elements of the crime against humanity of forced population transfer require that the Ukrainian children were lawfully present in the area from which they were deported or transferred; and that the Russian actors involved were aware that their presence was lawful. According to the report, the 314 children deported were Ukrainian citizens and lawfully residing within Ukraine. The Humanitarian Research Lab assessed to a high degree of confidence that these children were from Ukraine and that Russian federal government officials were aware of their Ukrainian origin by reviewing official statements and documents, including public records from Russian adoption databases. Other public actions confirm that those who orchestrated the transfer acted knowingly, including Putin’s decree to expedite and simplify the naturalization of Ukrainian children after government officials identified naturalization as the biggest barrier to adoption by Russian families.
The fourth and fifth elements of the crime require that Russia’s conduct was committed – and that Russian officials knew it was committed – as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. The transfer of the children took place during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and it was part of a program of widespread or systematic attacks directed against Ukrainian civilians. The program of coerced transfer of children was also itself widespread or systematic, as documented in the report. An extensive Russian bureaucracy created and carried out a program that transferred Ukrainian children to Russia for adoption and fostering with citizens of Russia. That program was facilitated by Russian legal and policy changes designed to enable and expedite the program.
Genocide
Genocide is prohibited by customary international law, the United Nations Genocide Convention, and the Rome Statute, all of which apply to Russia for its actions in Ukraine. As the International Law Commission makes clear, the prohibition on genocide is one of the peremptory norms of international law, from which there can be no derogation. The Genocide Convention, to which Russia is a State Party, prohibits the forcible transfer of children from one ethnic, national, or racial group to another. Article 6(e) of the Rome Statute incorporates that same language, under which the forcible transfer of children is a genocidal act.
The report chronicles in detail Russia’s use of physical force and coercive tactics to facilitate the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russian facilities and guardians, denying their ability to reconnect with their Ukrainian families. Russia has engaged in a larger mission to “Russify” these children and supplant Ukrainian identity with Russian identity.
It is extraordinarily difficult to prove the specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part that is required to demonstrate genocide. For this reason, and because no international tribunal has ever convicted someone of genocide for the forcible transfer of children, it is unlikely that the evidence in the report of forced relocation of children from Ukraine to Russia would, on its own, be charged as genocide. Nonetheless, the facts documented in this new report would, together with additional evidence, provide support for a broader case of genocide.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Russia’s forced deportation, reeducation, and adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine further violates many of its obligations under the CRC, including the explicit prohibition of the transfer and non-return of children abroad (Article 11). In addition, Russia’s intentional obfuscation of Ukrainian children’s identity on adoption databases, including by concealing their nationality to facilitate their adoption into Russian families, contravenes its CRC obligations to preserve the child’s nationality, name, and family relations (Article 8(1)). Many of the Ukrainian children listed for adoption or placed in Russian families were naturalized in a process enabled by new Russian legislation expediting the citizenship process. Adoption law in Russia authorizes adoptive parents to change the child’s surname, first name, patronymic, and date and place of birth. Consequently, it will be difficult or impossible for the Ukrainian families of the transferred children who are adopted to locate them. The children who have retained Ukrainian citizenship have been subjected to pro-Russian reeducation. These actions violate Russia’s responsibility under the CRC to preserve the children’s identification information, combat the transfer and non-return of children abroad, and consider the importance of continuity in the child’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic background and upbringing.
As a State Party to the CRC, Russia must regularly report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which engages in dialogue with the State Party to address concerns as well as issues recommendations on State conduct. The Committee also has the authority to conduct inquiries into allegations of grave or systematic rights violations under the CRC – including violations of international humanitarian law to which Russia must adhere under CRC Article 38(1). In January 2024, the Committee concluded its consideration of the combined sixth and seventh periodic report of the Russian Federation submitted in 2019. Its concluding observations expressed deep concern about the situation of children in Ukraine. The Committee has not established the due date of the eighth periodic report, which will provide an opportunity for the Committee to further investigate Russia’s ongoing abuses in Ukraine.
Conclusion
The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab’s new report reaffirms that the Russian Federation has engaged in the systematic, intentional, and widespread forced transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia. It provides more detailed, granular information regarding the fates of specific children subject to non-consensual relocation and the responsibility of individual Russian officials for those acts. It makes clear that the children whose forced removal from Ukraine is documented in the report have endured coerced reeducation, adoption, and naturalization. The report’s findings, while devastating, provide the necessary foundation to hold those responsible for these actions accountable for their gross violations of international law perpetrated during Russia’s unlawful war of aggression in Ukraine.