Russia Is Seizing Children to Use in Combat: Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Moscow of not just spiriting Ukrainian children into Russia, but of training some of them to one day fight against their own country. In a CBS News Face the Nation interview, Zelensky said his government has evidence children taken by Russia are being indoctrinated to hate Ukraine and prepared for combat, which could amount to a war crime under international law. He did not provide details of the evidence. The International Criminal Court has already issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children; the Kremlin insists it is running a humanitarian program for war orphans.

Zelensky said Russia has tried to use abducted children as bargaining chips, offering to swap them for Ukrainian prisoners of war—an exchange he called illegal and unacceptable. He told CBS that Ukraine has verified at least 20,000 child abductions and believes the real figure is higher. A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report earlier this year linked Russian state energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft to funding "reeducation" programs for more than 2,000 children, and noted both are benefiting from temporary US sanctions relief on some Russian oil sales. "Lifting sanctions is a help for the soldiers of Russia," Zelensky said, urging the US Congress to restore tougher measures.