Russia sent abducted Ukrainian children to North Korea, officials say

Several Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces were forcefully transferred to North Korea, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at Ukraine's Regional Center for Human Rights, told a US congressional subcommittee on the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian forces that Kyiv registered at least two cases of children from Eastern Ukraine deported by Moscow to North Korea.

Rashevska said during the hearing that “12-year-old Misha from the occupied Donetsk region and 16-year-old Liza from occupied Simferopol (in Crimea) were sent to Songdowon camp in North Korea, 9,000 km from home.”

"Children there were taught to ‘destroy Japanese militarists’ and met Korean veterans who, in 1968, attacked the US Navy ship Pueblo, killing and wounding nine American soldiers," she added.

Since the beginning of Russia's all-out war in early 2022, Pyongyang has provided support to Moscow, including weapons supplies and troop deployment.

Last year North Korea sent up to 12,000 troops to Russia to reinforce the troops.

Russia's forceful deportation of Ukrainian children

As of today, Kyiv has brought back around 1,800 children out of over 19,500 abducted by Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion.

The figures represent the children for whom detailed information is available, including their place of residence in Ukraine and their location in Russia. The actual number is likely to be much higher.

Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova has previously said that Russia “accepted” 700,000 Ukrainian children between February 2022 and July 2023.

Testifying at the US congressional subcommittee, Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) Executive Director Nathaniel Raymond said that according to his team’s research, at least 35,000 Ukrainian children — whose ages at the time of capture ranged from 8 months to 17 years — are temporarily or permanently in Russia’s custody.

Many of them are taken to camps in temporarily occupied territories in Ukraine and in Russia.

“There, they faced so-called 'patriotic re-education' that included being prohibited from speaking Ukrainian and being brainwashed with an alternate version of history in which the nation of Ukraine and its culture did not exist”, Raymond said.

In September, HRL concluded that there are over 210 facilities in which the children are being indoctrinated, many militarily trained, and held incommunicado.

Raymond insisted in his testimony that the return of all Ukrainian children abducted by Russia should be “a precondition for any negotiated settlement to this war”.

UN calls for return of Russia-abducted minors

The UN General Assembly approved a resolution on Wednesday demanding the return of all Ukrainian children who Russia has illegally deported.

A total of 91 countries including the US voted in favour while 12, including Russia, Belarus and Iran were against.

The resolution demands that Moscow return all Ukrainian children forcibly displaced or deported since 2014.

It also calls for an end to further deportations, family separations, changes in citizenship, adoptions, fostering and ideological indoctrination.

"There will be no just peace in Ukraine without the unconditional return of Ukrainian children. This resolution is not about politics. It is about humanity," Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa said at the UN General Assembly debate.