Several hundred thousand Ukrainian children are believed to have been kidnapped by Vladimir Putin’s forces and they have been put in a catalogue for adoption in Russia
A sick catalogue of kidnapped Ukrainian children offered up for adoption where they are listed by hair and eye colour has been issued by Russia.
The online database of Ukrainian children has been put together by authorities in the Russian occupied region of Luhansk holding 294 kids and it is available at the education department. The troubling catalogue is described as being made up of “orphans and children left without parental care”. And the description of children include their age, gender, personality as well as the colour of their hair and eyes. Some examples had kids described as “obedient” and “calm”.
Concern about the catalogue has raised by the Save Ukraine organisation with its CEO Mykola Kuleba writing on Instagram: “Most children in this catalogue were born in Luhansk Oblast before the Russian occupation and had citizenship.” It comes after Putin warns of nuclear war after unleashing another night of hell on Ukraine.
Mr Kuleba continued: “Parents of some of them were killed by occupation authorities, others were simply issued Russian identification documents to legitimize their abduction.” And he added: “The way they describe our children is indistinguishable from a slave catalogue. This is child trafficking in the 21st century, and the world must act to stop it immediately.”
While Ukaine officials have identified nearly 20,000 children who have been abducted by Russia, the figure is believed to be a lot higher and could be several hundreds of thousands.
Shocking accounts from intelligence experts over the past three years have detailed how the children have been taken by Putin’s troops from occupied Ukrainian territories and transported across the border, including on at least on one occasion in Russian presidential aircraft.
Upon arriving in Russia they are put into a network of camps and foster homes, and put through “re-education” programmes designed to strip them of Ukrainian identity. Many are then placed within Russian families. So far, less than 1,500 have been returned back home through diplomatic efforts.
And Mr Kuleba wrote on X that what Russia is doing is a “war crime”. He said: “Russia isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. It’s openly trafficking Ukrainian children. On official platforms, Ukrainian orphans are displayed like products in an online marketplace.
“Full-face photos. Age. Eye colour. Health status. Even “obedience level.” Filterable. Sortable. Selectable. This isn’t care. It’s state-sponsored child trafficking. Since 2014, children from occupied regions have been systematically abducted, renamed, and placed with Russian families. Now, with updated laws, Russia can even alter their surnames and birthdays. This isn’t just illegal—it’s a war crime.”
Britain has also imposed sanctions against people identified as “perpetrators of Russia’s forced deportation and brainwashing of Ukrainian children”.
Announcing the measure in late 2024, Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the abductions as “a systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity”, and said Vladimir Putin’s targeting of Ukrainian children “shows the depths he will go to in his mission to erase Ukraine and its people from the map”.
