US creates fund to help return displaced Ukrainian children
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Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska (centre) welcomed the creation of the fund after meeting in Washington with US officials.
PHOTO: X/@ZELENSKAUA
- US creates a US$25 million fund to help identify, return, and rehabilitate Ukrainian children forcibly relocated to Russia since February 2022.
- Kyiv reports nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly taken to Russia, with the fund supporting tracking and reintegration programmes.
- UN accuses Moscow of "crimes against humanity" for deportations; Russia claims it moved children for safety and will return them under certain conditions.
AI generated
WASHINGTON - The United States announced the creation of a US$25 million (S$32 million) fund on March 26 to help with the return of Ukrainian children forcibly relocated to Russia.
The fund will be used for “the identification, return, and rehabilitation of Ukrainian children and youth who have been forcibly transferred or otherwise held away from their families and communities,” the US State Department said, in a statement.
According to Kyiv, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia since the start of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.
The fund will support two kinds of programmes: identifying and tracking displaced children, and supporting their reintegration into society, the statement said.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska welcomed the creation of the fund, saying on X that “all Ukrainian children must return.”
She met in Washington with two senior State Department officials, Mr Riley Barnes and Mr Jeremy Lewin, who are respectively in charge of human rights and humanitarian aid.
The issue is highly sensitive in Ukraine and remains central to every new round of negotiations for a potential peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.
A UN international commission of inquiry recently accused Moscow of committing “crimes against humanity” by forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and obstructing their return.
Russia 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.
Small groups of children have been repatriated through various intermediaries, including US First Lady Melania Trump.
In 2025, the Trump administration cut funding to a humanitarian research laboratory at Yale University that had been collecting data to track the displaced children. AFP
