Stolen Generation: How Russia Is Erasing Ukraine’s Future, One Child at a Time

Across the world, June is recognized as International Children’s Month. However, for many Ukrainian families, it is a painful reminder of absence and loss, as thousands of children have had their futures stolen by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. UNICEF estimates that since the 2022 reinvasion, at least 2,406 Ukrainian children have been killed or injured. According to Bring Kids Back UA, a strategic action plan initiated by the President of Ukraine that aims to bring together international organizations and partner countries to recover Ukrainian children, 19,546 children have been deported or forcibly displaced by the Russian Federation. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine reports that at least 1.6 million Ukrainian children remain in Russia or in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. The forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation represents a grave violation of international humanitarian law, echoing historical colonial practices of cultural erasure and exposing deep weaknesses in the international legal system. 

Historical Context: Child Removal as a Colonial Tool  

Practices of cultural erasure, forced assimilation, and the removal of children are not new tactics of war to the Russian Federation; notably, during the Soviet era, an explicit policy of ‘Russification’ was already in place.  This included the forced separation of indigenous Siberian children from their families and placing them in remote Soviet-run schools; similarly, in the 1940s, the USSR carried out mass deportations of women and children from the Baltic states.  Crimean Tatars were also victims of the Soviet displacement policies. In 1944, nearly 200,000 were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to various regions across the Soviet Union. In exile, they faced constant surveillance and persecution, with their civil rights, cultural identity, and language systematically targeted by the regime. Although they have made efforts to regain their national statehood and cultural autonomy, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 brought those efforts to an abrupt stop.  

Canada’s own legacy of the indigenous residential school system serves as a sobering parallel to the case of Ukraine and Russia, demonstrating how the removal and forced assimilation children has been used historically across the world as a tool to erode ties of kinship and ethnic identity so as to facilitate a broader colonial project.  The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that Canada’s residential school system amounted to “cultural genocide.” However, debate continues over the language used. While some legal scholars argue that Canada’s actions constituted genocide, the term “cultural” was adopted to center survivors’ voices and to enable mechanisms for financial reparation and justice. Article II(e) of the Genocide Convention explicitly addresses the forcible transfer of children from one group to another with the intent to destroy that group, in whole or in part, as an act of genocide. Such displacement often results in profound estrangement from one’s culture, language, and overall sense of identity – outcomes that strategically align with the Russian Federation’s ongoing efforts to erase Ukrainian identity as it continues its invasion, echoing the broader history of Russification policies that were pervasive during the Soviet era. Soviet-Era policies targeting Ukrainians and other Indigenous communities across the Soviet Union, as well as Canada’s residential school system, relied on forced removal of children and erasure of cultural identity as deliberate tools of colonial control to advance broader nation-building projects rooted in domination.  

What is Russia doing in Ukraine right now?  

The Russian Federation, under the guise of humanitarian evacuation, exploits the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children and places them into Russian families, even when those children have living relatives in Ukraine. While the Russian state passed legislation banning foreign nationals from adopting Russian children, even if it means denying them critical medical treatment available abroad, it simultaneously encouraged and financially rewarded the adoption of Ukrainian children by Russian families. Maria Lvova-Belova – Russian politician, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, and one of the central figures in the state-organized kidnapping and adoption of Ukrainian children from occupied territories –  also serves as an example of the legitimization of coerced adoption by state officials. She herself adopted a teenage boy from Mariupol to encourage Russian families to open their doors to Ukrainian children.  

Ukrainian children deported to these so-called “camps” reported severe psychological and emotional abuse. Children reported being denied the right to speak their native language and were told that they were abandoned, that no one is coming for them. One of the most severe tactics employed by the Russian government is the military training and eventual conscription of these Ukrainian-born children into the Russian army, preparing them to fight against their own people. One example of a militarized camp is Artek, located in occupied Crimea. The Russian Red Cross (RRC) has been widely criticized for its close ties to Putin’s regime and the director of the state-run Artek camp. RRC has been accused of helping to facilitate in the detention of Ukrainian children deported by Russia from occupied territories of Ukraine. The government-owned Artek “summer camp” receives Ukrainian children, who are then subjected to extensive “patriotic re-education” programs and are prevented from returning to their families.  

Gaps in the Rule-Based Order  

On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two individuals responsible for deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova. The warrants were issued on the basis of alleged war crimes, specifically the unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation: acts considered violations of the Rome Statute. At the time, the international community celebrated this as an important step toward initiating the process of criminal accountability. 

As of June 2025 however, no arrests have been made and the practicality of detaining Putin and Lvov-Belova remains highly uncertain. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, and the ICC does not conduct trials in absentia. Earlier in 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia, a country that is a signatory to the Rome Statute, yet his visit did not result in his arrest. As a member of the ICC, Mongolia is obligated to honour the ICC’s arrest warrants, however, as the country remains heavily dependent on Russian energy, the arrest was unlikely. The Mongolian government’s failure to uphold its obligations under international law is yet another example of the erosion of the rules-based international order, a decline that has been increasingly evident, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes committed in its wake.  

Russian aggression in Ukraine continues to expose significant gaps in the rules-based order that has underpinned global relations since the end of World War II, prompting leaders worldwide to reflect on the need for new mechanisms of enforcement. The tactics of control and colonial expansion employed by Putin’s regime are not new; they reflect the historical legacy of displacement faced by indigenous communities during the Soviet era and serve as a sobering reminder to Canadians of their own legacy of residential schools. The failure to effectively enforce international legal doctrines is also tied to the global dependence on resources, a key aspect of the colonial nature of international relationships. While the Ukrainian government has faced significant challenges in its efforts to bring back stolen children, initiatives like Bring Kids Back UA and collaborations with governments around the world offer some hope that justice may still be possible. As Canada navigates an increasingly uncertain global terrain, it will be crucial for the new government – if it wishes to distinguish itself from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy legacy and position itself as a credible force in the G7 – to not only confront the colonial dimensions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also to reckon with Canada’s own legacy of residential schools, which remains inseparable from its global credibility on human rights.