PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) -- A bipartisan resolution to return thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia is "something that every human being with a heart should understand," Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia told OSV News.
On May 20, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., led a group of fellow lawmakers in introducing the resolution, which calls for the return of some 20,000 Ukrainian children forcibly transferred to Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied territory.
Co-sponsoring the resolution are Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., John Fetterman, D-Penn., and Rick Scott, R-Fla.
The resolution -- which seeks the children's return as a precondition for any peace agreements in the Ukraine-Russia war -- follows an April letter sent by 40 faith leaders to President Donald Trump, urging him and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to facilitate the return of the children.
Russia's systematic deportation of Ukrainian children -- coordinated by multiple actors, and extensively documented in reports by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab -- violates several instruments of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention, and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Two of the six arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Russian officials address the child deportations, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and child commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova accused of war crimes for facilitating the abductions.
In Russian custody, deported Ukrainian children -- whose actual numbers are feared to be far higher than the official Ukrainian count of 19,546 -- have been subjected to "patriotic re-education" designed to erase their Ukrainian identity, as well as abuse and forced adoption by Russian families.
The resolution also notes that Russia’s invasion has increasingly exposed children to an array of perils, including human trafficking and exploitation, child labor, sexual violence, hunger, injury, trauma and death.
Citing the U.S. State Department's 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, the resolution noted that "Russia recruits or uses child soldiers as defined under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act," and has a documented "state-sponsored policy or pattern of human trafficking" that makes the nation "among the worst hubs for human trafficking in the world."
To date, only 1,274 of the Ukrainian children have been returned, and lawmakers seek to make their release a precondition for any final peace agreement in ending Russia's war on Ukraine.
Ukraine's former ombudsman for children, Mykola Kuleba, said his nation's "stolen children are counting on moral leadership from the United States."
Kulelba, the CEO and founder of Save Ukraine, said he was "grateful for every voice" raised "to ensure that these children are safely returned with urgency." Save Ukraine is the largest humanitarian organization working to have the children returned.
A number of faith-based and advocacy organizations have endorsed the resolution, including World Relief; the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; the Texas Baptists' Christian Life Commission and Center for Cultural Engagement; Gary Marx, host of the Peace & Power Ukraine podcast; and the U.S.-based nonprofit Razom for Ukraine.
Archbishop Gudziak also pointed to Pope Leo XIV, who has "appealed for peace in Ukraine, emphasizing how dear to his heart the suffering people of Ukraine are, and he called for the release of all prisoners and all of the abducted children."
That appeal was also made by the late Pope Francis, who "was active in behind-the-scenes efforts to free the children that were abducted from Ukraine by Russian occupying forces," said Archbishop Gudziak.
"It's a call that should be quite simply heard," said Archbishop Gudziak. "It's something that every human being with a heart should understand, and that is why we ask our political leaders to support this resolution, and we ask the global community to get behind the effort to free the abducted children of Ukraine."
