It is every parent’s worst nightmare. One moment your child is at school or playing in the garden – the next, they are gone. But this isn’t a hypothetical fear for thousands of Ukrainian families. It is their daily reality.
Since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, almost 20,000 Ukrainian children have been identified as having been forcibly taken across the border into Russia. Although these are just the documented figures, the numbers are almost certainly significantly greater, Russia itself claims over 700,000 children have been transferred.
These are not just numbers. These are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. They are toddlers, tweens, and teenagers – children who should be safe in the arms of their parents, with their families, not seized by a hostile state, often given new names and identities.
This is not a plotline from the Handmaid’s Tale, this is happening in Europe today.
Recently, I visited Ukraine as part of a delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I had the privilege of meeting members of Save Ukraine, including their dynamic founder Mykola Kuleba. The organisation is dedicated to locating and retrieving these stolen children.
To date, Save Ukraine has helped to rescue and return more than 612 children. Yet for every child brought home, there are hundreds still missing, hidden deep within Russia or in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Operating under constant threat, this team of volunteers works to reunite the families torn apart by war and state-sponsored kidnapping. Their work is nothing short of heroic.
The aim of Russia is chillingly clear: to erase Ukrainian identity from the next generation and replace it with something else. This is not just a war fought on the battlefield. It is a war on childhood, on family, on a nation’s very future. During my recent trip, I visited one of Save Ukraine’s Hope and Healing Centres in Irpin. A bright and welcoming space offering vital support for children in the community, particularly those with disabilities and special needs, alongside those rescued from Russia.
Inside its colourful walls, I met two teenagers rescued from Russia by Save Ukraine. Their harrowing stories laid bare the true cost of this conflict. As a mother of teenagers myself, it was distressing to hear their accounts. Many of these stolen children are vulnerable, orphaned or separated from their families, isolated, frightened, and often voiceless in a system designed to erase their identities.
One teenage boy recounted being separated from his siblings and mother, ending up in a Russian military academy. He, like many of these children, are immersed in state propaganda and faced with a grim choice: remain stateless and trapped or accept Russian nationality. These boys are not just being indoctrinated, they are being trained to become soldiers, likely to be sent back to fight against their own homeland.
Another, a 17-year-old girl who has since returned to Ukraine with her baby daughter, was visibly traumatised by her experience. Speaking through tears about her ordeal. She recounted being woken in the night by military men entering a female dormitory and shining flashlights in the girls’ faces.
Her fear and trauma were palpable. This was one of the hardest parts of my visit to Ukraine but also the most important. To hear the stories of these children, and to understand that there are still thousands more like them being held in Russia, we must help to bring them home.
These young people, now safely back in Ukraine, reunited with family and receiving the support they need, are beginning to rebuild their lives, with hope to achieve their dreams for the future.
What became strikingly clear during my time there is that Ukraine is not asking for charity – they are asking for solidarity. They are asking us to stand firm, not just in words, but in actions. And that includes supporting the organisations that are fighting every day to undo the ruthlessly cruel destruction of Putin’s war machine.
Britain has been a steadfast friend to Ukraine, and we should be proud of that. Our military and humanitarian support has made a real difference on the ground. But this is not the time to retreat. If anything, we must go further.
That means ring-fencing our foreign aid to fund humanitarian support, such as the rescue missions by Save Ukraine. It means applying diplomatic pressure on Russia through every available international forum, including the International Criminal Court, which has rightly issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s so-called ‘children’s commissioner’. And it means supporting the courageous individuals who are putting themselves on the line to bring these children home.
The fight for Ukraine is a fight for more than territory. It is a fight for the values we in Britain hold dear: freedom, family, and the sanctity of childhood – their nation’s future. I left Ukraine with a heavy heart, but also with a renewed determination. These children – frightened, lost, and far from home – need us. Not in a year. Not when the headlines return. But now.
We owe them that. As a mother, and as a Member of Parliament, I will not look away.
Aphra Brandreth, is the Conservative MP for Chester South and Eddisbury and a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee