Will a European Ruling Help Bring Ukrainian Children Home?

Victoria Matola

Watchers Editor-in-chief

Tuesday, 26 August, 2025

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According to official Ukrainian data, more than 19,500 children have been deported from Ukraine to the Russian Federation since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Human rights advocates and experts believe the actual number of children taken to Russia is significantly higher.

A July 9, 2025 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights Ukraine (ECHR) in the case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v Russia obliges Moscow to, among other things, return all deportees to Ukraine.

But – with only some 1,500 children having been successfully repatriated - experts warn that returning these young people, especially from Russian boarding schools, has become practically impossible.

“The deportation process is ongoing,” said Daria Kasianova, chair of the Board of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network, an organisation that has helped return around 300 children.

“Children are taken from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia. Some of them return to the occupied territories, and at times, getting them out of there is even more difficult than from Russia.”

Her organisation focuses on individual cases, such as those involving children who have no close relatives, have lost their documents or who are afraid to leave.

“We have a specific procedure, we know exactly who we want to bring back. Unfortunately, neither international statements nor court rulings have any impact on this process,” Kasianova noted, referring to the ECHR ruling.

Kasianova noted that attempts to return children were largely thwarted because Russian officials immediately obstruct the process in every possible way. The children are often intimidated with threats that they will be interrogated in Ukraine and that their parents or relatives will be held accountable for improper care.

This was the experience of two teenagers from the Kharkiv region who were only successfully returned in 2023, even though the other children whom they were deported with were brought back in October 2022.

The teenagers were moved three times from one region to another before their guardians eventually managed to return them to their parents in Ukraine.

“It was the most difficult case,” Kasianova recounted.

However, Kateryna Rashevska, an expert on international justice and legal analysis at the Regional Centre for Human Rights, argued that the recent ECHR ruling carried significantly more legal weight than previous international statements on the return of children.

Although Russia has not been a party to the European Convention on Human Rights since September 16 2022, the ruling is still binding because the complaint was filed before its withdrawal. She argued that, sooner or later, the Russian Federation will resume complying with ECHR decisions, and thus will have to comply with this one as well.

Rashevska noted a previous example: in the summer of 2014, 186 orphans and children in care, including those with disabilities, were forcibly transferred from the Donetsk region to the Russian Federation. Their return was secured within days thanks to an appeal to the ECHR and its issuance of an interim measures ruling. Subsequently, these cases were incorporated into the major inter-state case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v Russia.

In its ruling, the ECHR found that there was no legal basis for the removal of Ukrainian children, a finding which applies to deportations and forcible transfers that occurred also between the start of the full-scale invasion and September 16, 2022.

This action contravened not only the convention but also international humanitarian law, specifically the prohibition against changing the civil status of minors. 

The court also found that the unlawful transfer of children constituted an “administrative practice” that violated Articles 3, 5 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – concerning the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to liberty and security and the right to respect for private and family life, respectively.

In addition, the ECHR found that the Russian Federation had deliberately amended its own legislation not only to impose citizenship on Ukrainian children but also to facilitate their adoption. Russia was also restricting access to educational institutions and indoctrinating Ukrainian children by suppressing their own language and imposing its own educational standards, textbooks and teaching methods. This constituted an administrative practice that violated the children’s right to education and was discriminatory in nature.

The court ruled that all children should be returned home without delay.

“To this end, an independent international mechanism, based on the principle of the best interests of the child, should be established,” Rashevska said. “The Russian Federation should be obliged to participate in it to ensure children are identified, contact with their relatives is restored and they are reunited with their parents and legal guardians.

She added that the ECHR’s next step would be to determine compensation for the victims.

“For three years, we fought to legally establish Russia’s obligation to return all the children,” Rashevska continued. “There were proposals for a UN General Assembly resolution and calls from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe... but it was the European Court of Human Rights that ultimately enshrined this obligation for Russia. The court also noted that Russia had rejected all calls from the international community to create a mechanism for identifying and returning Ukrainian children. In effect, the court recognised that Russia had no intention of returning them.”

Her organisation plans to use the ECHR’s ruling to bolster its legal and advocacy position on the international stage. This includes its work at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has already issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the deportation of children.

“The Russian Federation is trying to trade the return of Ukrainian children for politically advantageous concessions,” Rashevska added. “And unfortunately, they are currently succeeding in manipulating this issue – one that is highly sensitive for Ukrainian society and European politicians, but holds no real significance for Russia itself. They are unwilling to return our children and refuse to cooperate, but they are prepared to exploit this topic for as long as they possibly can.”

 She also noted that as time passed, it would become increasingly difficult to bring children home - especially those who had been adopted in Russia.