The thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped since the invasion of Russia started 3½ years ago, again are paramount in international discussions while NATO leaders gathered to discuss the war.
After the deadly invasion of Russia 2022, the Ukrainian children are among the most important victims of the war, confirming Kyiv that at least 19,546 cases of illegal deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus or Russian territory.
Some reports have suggested that the number of violence -transported Ukrainian children could be considerably higher, rangingly closer to 35,000 abductions, many of whom have been feared illegally.
A girl waves in an evacuation bus September 17, 2024 in Pokrovsk, Ukraine. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Image Ukraine via Getty Images)
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But President Donald Trump, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, followed by a meeting with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zenskyy and NATO leaders, said Monday, said the issue of forced Ukrainian children “A topic is at the top of all the lists.”
The issue was again created after First Lady Melania Trump sent a letter to Putin, who delivered Trump by hand during his meeting on Friday, in which she said: “It is time” to restore the “Dream of Love, possibility and safety of children and safety of children”.
“A simple but profound concept, Mr Putin, as I know for sure that you agree, is that the offspring of each generation start their lives with a purity – an innocence that is above geography, government and ideology,” she wrote.
Denys Zaporozhchenko, left, meets his children Nikita, Yana and Dayana after the bus that delivers them and arrived more than a dozen other children from the Russian area in Kyiv 22 March 2023. (Sergei Chuzavkov/AFP via Getty images)
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Zenskyy seemed to surprise Trump by giving him a letter written by his wife, Olena Zenska, intended for the First Lady.
The content of the second letter was not announced, but Trump noticed the compassion of his wife when it comes to the issue of children, a subject that Zenska has also worked on.
“She sees the heartache, the parents, the funerals you see on television, always funerals,” Trump said.
Some children have been sent back to Ukraine step by step by the help of third -party mediators, such as Qatar and the Vatican, although reporting only a few suggests 1,500 have been released by Russian authorities.
Ukrainian negotiators have been insisting for months on the return of the Ukrainian children while they meet Russian counterparts in Turkey.
While Swaps of the prisoner of war has been agreed, Zenskyy said that Russian officials have refused to transfer all Ukrainian children directly to KYIV.
Thousands of teddy bears and toys that represent the thousands of children who were abducted during the war in Ukraine in the Rond-Point Schuman in Brussels on February 23, 2023. (Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty images)
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“We cannot reach an agreement with them about the return of the children,” Zenskyy told reporters last week, adding that despite attempts, it remains “impossible” without the help of other parties involved.
“That is why we wanted certain things in this trilateral track to be arranged-staked-fire, an all-for-all exchange and the return of children,” he added. “This is something everyone benefits from. President Trump benefits, the Russians don’t lose anything, the Ukrainians don’t lose anything. It is a reasonable compromise.”
