Russia Catalogs Abducted Ukrainian Children for Adoption

Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine's Luhansk region have established an online database cataloging nearly 300 Ukrainian children, allowing users to filter by age, physical features, and personality traits to facilitate their adoption or foster care by Russian families. Many of these children were orphaned by the war or forcibly taken and re-registered under Russian documents, with critics likening the database to a 'slave catalogue.' NGOs and Ukrainian officials, including Mykola Kuleba of Save Ukraine, have condemned the database as digital child trafficking and accuse Russia of erasing Ukrainian identities and conducting systematic deportations. Estimates of the number of abducted Ukrainian children range from 20,000 to as many as 300,000, with only a few returned. The practice, ongoing since Russia's 2014 invasion and escalating after 2022, has prompted the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for those involved. The presence of this database on an official Russian-controlled website is cited as direct evidence of these ongoing violations.