THE HAGUE — Investigators from Europol traced 45 Ukrainian children who were forcibly transferred to Russia, Belarus, or occupied Ukrainian territory during the Russia-Ukraine war, and passed the details to Ukrainian authorities to support ongoing investigations. The information was uncovered using open-source intelligence during a two-day hackathon in The Hague, Netherlands. The hackathon involved 40 experts from 18 countries, the International Criminal Court, and non-governmental partners.

Kyiv has identified 19,546 children who were forcibly taken from occupied Ukrainian regions since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Some of those children have been adopted by Russian nationals, while others are being held in re-education camps or psychiatric hospitals.

A United Nations international commission of inquiry accused Moscow of committing "crimes against humanity" by forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and obstructing their return. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and for Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for alleged war crimes involving the unlawful deportation and transfer of children.

The Russian government denies the allegations and says it has been evacuating people voluntarily from warzones. It maintains that it transferred Ukrainian children from captured areas for their own safety and is prepared to return them to their families under conditions it deems appropriate.

The issue remains central to every new round of negotiations for a potential peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow. "The aim is genocide of the Ukrainian people through Ukrainian children. Everybody understands that if you take children away from a nation, the nation will not exist," said Daria Herasymchuk, presidential adviser on children's rights.