Russia is abducting children from Ukraine on an industrial scale confirming its status as a terrorist state engaged in human trafficking.

The Russians have again taken 450 Ukrainian children out of the occupied territories of the Kherson Region, namely the Kakhovskyy and Genicheskyy districts. The children were placed mainly in Krasnodar Region, with a small number in Yaroslavl. In total, since February 2022 the Russians have deported at least 19,546 Ukrainian children, but this is only the official figure where the deportation of the children has been documented. Ukrainian children started to be deported as early as 2014, from the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas, and the total figure for the illegal abductions much higher.

The demographic crisis in Russia is pushing Putin to commit another war crime, which is the abduction of Ukrainian children to Russian territory. Russia is experiencing a severe labour shortage and is also experiencing a sharp drop in birth rates, which in 2023 promises to break the record of post-default 1999. Accordingly, Russian troops are removing not only grain, raw materials, and equipment from Ukraine’s occupied territories but also Ukrainian children. According to local residents from the liberated part of the Kherson region, the Russians organised a witch hunt for Ukrainian children, who had to be hidden to save them from being kidnapped.

The children are taken to nationally heterogeneous regions of the Russian Federation, where the number of Russians is rapidly decreasing: Chechnya, Chuvashia, or to economically backward and sparsely populated regions of Siberia and the Far East. The Kremlin is trying to prevent Ukrainian children from returning home by changing their surnames and giving them to foster families. In this way, Putin seeks to replenish the population of the rapidly dying Russian Federation.

Russia has become a threat to the whole world. The abduction of Ukrainian children was one of the main reasons for the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Putin. After defeating Russia, not only Putin but every Russian official who has taken part in the sickening industrial scale deportation and trafficking of Ukrainian children should face justice at the international tribunal in The Hague.