Do you know where your children are?
20,000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and taken to Russia--less than 5 per cent has returned
Hello friends,
This past week, I have been thinking about children. More specifically, I have been thinking about our collective responsibility for the children in this world.
Renowned African-American writer James Baldwin said:
The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.
The six o’clock news and my social media feeds are flooded with photos of children who need more than our thoughts and prayers. They need our moral outrage and quick, definitive action.
It is difficult to see children suffer, especially due to war, famine, displacement, or other horror. As a mother, I can only imagine the fear and longing that parents feel when they are separated from the children they love.
It is a feeling my paternal grandparents knew well. My Oma gave birth to her youngest child, my father, while fleeing soldiers, only to lose him in the maelstrom that followed his birth. My grandparents had no choice but to continue fleeing toward safety, praying that they would soon be reunited with their son. For eleven days, they drove on, not knowing where—or how—he was. Finally, they found him. He was safe in the care of neighbours who had kept him alive by feeding him mare’s milk. They’d also given him a name, one that means Strong Heart.
My paternal grandparents and their family. My father is in the lower right corner.
I think about my grandparents, and the fear they must have felt, often.
They were lucky. Their son was returned to them.
Others are not so fortunate.
Since the start of the war against Ukraine, 20,000 children have been kidnapped from the sovereign nation and taken to Russia. According to the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, only about 800 have returned.
Russia insists it merely rescued unattended children from combat zones, but the United Nations has accused them of war crimes, a charge echoed by the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimar Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement in the abductions.
In this issue of Sift. Shift. Lift., we will look at the kidnapping of Ukrainian children through the eyes of academics, artists, and activists.
Let’s go.
Sift.
Sift through the observations of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University.
Much has been written about the cuts to USAID by the chainsaw-wielding head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk.
One of the groups that has lost its funding is the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University, “which used open source technology including satellite imagery, social media and Russian publications, to trace the lost children and share their findings with the Ukrainian authorities to help them locate the abducted minors.” (Brendan Cole, Newsweek, March 15, 2025)
To learn more about the Humanitarian Research Lab’s work in this area, read:
“Intentional, systematic, and widespread: Russia’s program of coerced adoption and fostering of Ukraine’s children” (Yale School of Public Health, December 3, 2024)
Shift.
Shifting perspectives through children’s literature and art.
Ukrainian-Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes acclaimed nonfiction and historical fiction, including Under Attack, the first middle-grade novel in the Kidnapped from Ukraine series. In the book:
12-year-old twin sisters Rada and Dariia Popkova couldn’t be more different. Dariia is outgoing and chatty while Rada is a quieter and artsy. But what they have in common is their love for each other and their home. The family lives in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is attacked by the Russians on Feb 24th, 2022.
The attack separates the family -- Dariia is with her mom and Rada with her dad. Dariia and her mother are then separated by Russian officials and Dariia is sent to live with a Russian family. As the war rages around them, the sisters and their family must overcome unimaginable hardships. But they will learn how powerful hope is in the face of disaster.
If you are more interested in visual art, consider “Empty Beds,” a 100-foot mural in the Little Ukraine neighbourhood of Lower Manhattan, New York by Phil Buehler, a Brooklyn-based artist specializing in giant public installations.
To see photographs and learn more about the work, read “Empty Beds: a mural highlights the abduction of Ukrainian children” (David Smith, The Guardian, October 28, 2024)
Lift.
Take action and support the NGO Save Ukraine.
According to its website, Save Ukraine:
Founded in 2014 during the early days of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, has emerged as the largest humanitarian organization dedicated to rescuing abducted Ukrainian children and providing critical support to families affected by war.
Established in response to the growing humanitarian crisis sparked by Russia's annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Save Ukraine initially focused on delivering emergency aid and evacuation assistance to displaced families.
These early efforts laid the foundation for a mission centered on protecting Ukraine’s most vulnerable populations: children, orphans, and families trapped in conflict zones.
To support Save Ukraine visit its website.
Before you go
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I didn't know about the children. That is vile.