Poland to launch EU scheme for tracing Ukrainian children abducted by Russia

Poland will this week launch a joint initiative with the European Commission to trace Ukrainian children who have been abducted and taken to Russia during the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as to “ensure those responsible are brought to justice”.

The aim is to “to draw the world’s attention to this serious problem through the very high political level of this initiative, the level of the president of the European Commission and the Polish prime minister”, said Poland’s European affairs minister, Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk, on Saturday.

The scheme will involve “investigative activities to collect specific evidence” of abductions and “establish a mechanism allowing the problem to be dealt with”. Further details will be announced early this week, added the minister.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine one year ago, the Kremlin has been accused by various international agencies of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has accused Moscow of putting them up for adoption by Russian families.

While the exact number of children forcibly taken to Russia is unknown and estimates vary widely, Ukraine’s presidential advisor for children’s rights, Daria Herasymchuk, last month reported that almost 14,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted.

Earlier this year, the German and Dutch foreign ministers condemned Russia for what they called a “cruel” and “inhumane” policy that is “tearing families apart”.

Speaking on Saturday, Szynkowski vel Sęk warned that “we cannot close our eyes to this problem…The Western world must respond and must collect evidence of these crimes and ensure that those responsible for these crimes are brought to justice”.

He noted that Poles have historical experience in this area, and “we therefore feel particularly aware of this topic and particularly committed to act on it”. During the Second World War, Nazi Germany abducted tens of thousands of ethnic Polish children and gave them to German families to “Germanise” them.

Since the early stages of the war, Polish officials, including police officers and prosecutors, have been involved in documenting and investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Poland was one of 41 countries that supported calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes in Ukraine.

Main Image credit: Mirek Pruchnicki / Flickr 

Anna Hackett

Anna Hackett is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a recent graduate of European Studies from Trinity College Dublin and has had previous journalistic experience with the Irish Independent News & Media group.