“Turn over the children and they’ll be fed. If you don’t, we’ll see to it that they starve.”
This is the impossible decision Ukrainian caregivers were faced with when Russian soldiers appeared at the steps of orphanages in occupied areas at the start of the war, according to General Andriy Nebytov of the Kyiv Regional Police. With no alternative, the children were duly surrendered.
When human rights activist Mitzi Perdue spoke to General Nebytov in Kyiv last month, he painted a heartbreaking scene: “The Russians rounded up the children from the orphanages in the occupied areas and sent them to Russia'' in droves.
By reviewing official records from these orphanages, some reports estimate the number of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia exceeds 200,000. General Nebytov corroborates this claim, gravely stating, “We have very good records from the orphanages and ... the number is real.”
Putin’s motive for taking these children is an effect of a growing existential problem facing Russia: a rapidly declining population. According to data from the World Bank, in 1992, Russia had over 148 million inhabitants and their population had been on a steady incline for decades.
However, the latest figures show that their population has declined to under 144 million and their birth rate has dropped significantly in recent years. To achieve a steady-state population, women need to bear an average of 2.1 children during their lifetimes — a figure that Russia has not met since 1988.
At an average of just 1.5 births per woman, Russia’s birth rate sits far below replacement levels.
To add to their population crisis, Russia suffers from an unusually low life expectancy. According to recent figures from the World Bank, the average life expectancy of a child at birth in the United States is 77 years. In Russia, it’s only 71, and for men that number is a staggering 66 years.
The war itself has also driven hundreds of thousands of Russians to leave their homeland. Often these are young, well-educated professionals — precisely the demographic that Russia depends on to slow their population decline.
Initially, these abductions were limited to soft targets, namely children in orphanages or otherwise separated from their families. These children have been sent as far away as Siberia.
After exhausting these demographics, the occupation authorities shifted their focus to Ukrainian childrens’ institutions, such as schools and athletic clubs. All the while, the Kremlin claims that removing and relocating these children is out of concern for their safety.
In reality, these children are being wrenched away from their parents and shipped to Russia with no guarantee of safety, causing growing concern among parents about their childrens’ well-being. In the last month alone, the Russians have “invited” 1,500 children from the Donbas area to Russia, under the guise of providing necessary relief from the stress of war.
This was supposed to be a routine holiday, complete with organized games. However, looking at Russia’s track record, many Ukrainians are certain Putin will not allow those children to return to their families. The parents are understandably frantic.
The longer this goes on, the more pressing the question becomes: When will these families be reunited?
Despite what President Putin may boast, he has failed to reverse the downward population spiral and has resorted to forcibly abducting Ukrainian children in a time of war to mitigate these population trends. Kidnapping Ukrainian children is especially useful to Russian repopulation efforts because they are ethnically similar and often already speak Russian.
As if the personal heartbreak the Ukrainians are enduring isn’t consequential enough, these actions thrust many of Russia’s ongoing population issues onto Ukraine and in doing so undermine the country’s future. Once transferred to the Russian Federation, these children are stripped of their culture and indoctrinated into seeing their own parents as enemies.
There are countless reasons to want to support Ukraine in their war effort and see to it that the war incited by Russia comes to an end. However, it’s important that these children and their families are not reduced to mere statistics.Putin and the Russians guilty of tearing these families apart need to be held accountable for the human rights violations that they have committed during this war on the international stage. And most importantly, the Ukrainians deserve to have their children back.
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of statecraft in Washington D.C.; expert on East-Central Europe's Three Seas region; author, among others, of "Intermarium: The Land Between The Baltic and Black Seas." Read Marek Jan Chodakiewicz's Reports — More Here.
Mitzi Perdue, heiress to the Sheraton Hotels fortune and wife of the late Frank Perdue, former CEO of Perdue Farms, is a best-selling author. She is also a philanthropist, and lifelong anti-human trafficking activist.