UN condemns unimaginable suffering of Ukrainian children at hands of Russia

Russia inflicted unimaginable suffering on millions of Ukrainian children and violated their rights since its full scale invasion of Ukraine begun in 2022, a new report by the United Nations Human Rights Office said on Friday.

“Their rights have been undermined in every aspect of life, leaving deep scars, both physical and psychosocial,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk.

“In the four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by the Russian Federation in 2022, children have been particularly affected by violations of international human rights law…including summary executions, arbitrary detention, conflict-related sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment”, the report said.

Five boys and two girls were summarily executed in 2022 and 2023, with the report noting that the wilful killing of civilians was a war crime and a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Certain children were required to participate in military-patriotic training, which involved singing the Russian anthem, and to adhere to the Russian educational curriculum – in breach of international humanitarian law.

The report indicated that moving at least 200 children from Russian-occupied areas to Russia between February 2022 and December 2024 could constitute war crimes. Earlier, Moscow stated that it was safeguarding at-risk children from a conflict area.

Ukraine has labeled the kidnappings of tens of thousands of its children moved to Russia or Russian-controlled areas without the approval of their families or guardians as a war crime that fits the U.N. treaty’s definition of genocide.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court released arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, concerning the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Russia condemned the warrants as “outrageous and intolerable.”

According to the report, Russia did not offer comprehensive details regarding the children to the Central Tracing Agency, hindering families’ efforts to locate them. The International Committee of the Red Cross stated in February that approximately 50,000 individuals have been reported missing during the past year of the war between Ukraine and Russia.

The UN Human Rights Office confirmed that over 600 children lost their lives in Ukraine, including occupied areas, from 24 February 2022 to 31 December 2024. At least 737,000 children were displaced within their own country, and an additional 1.7 million became refugees.