Russia continues to abduct Ukrainian children. The Office of the Ukrainian Ombudsman has revealed yet another proof of deportation and illegal adoption.

Two-thirds of the Kherson region remains under Russian occupation. Neither My Home nor Ukraine has access to the occupied territories. Representatives of the occupation administration have openly declared the mass placement of Ukrainian children into Russian families. Between 2022 and 2024, 42 children from the Kherson region — who had been trapped under occupation since the first days of the full-scale invasion —were transferred into the custody of Russian families.

Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported that the Russian authorities had long concealed information about children from the Kherson region and ignored Ukraine’s demands to provide details on every deported and forcibly displaced child. Little was known about the children from the Kherson Regional Baby Home. In 2022, the facility’s staff hid the children in the basement of the Golgotha church in an attempt to save them, until they were discovered by FSB operatives. The My Home team, led by the pastor of Golgotha church Pavlo Smolyakov, was directly involved in hiding those children.

Most of these children had parents or legal guardians. However, the Russians took them to occupied Crimea and placed them in the Yalynka baby home, known for its cruel treatment of children. Some of their profiles later appeared in the Russian federal adoption database. Reports indicate that as of now, 10 children from Kherson remain at this institution in Crimea, where they are being prepared for placement into Russian families.

These actions are a blatant violation of international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The deportation of Ukrainian children and their forced transfer into Russian families is a war crime for which the perpetrators must be held accountable.

We pray every day for all Ukrainian children — those who have been abducted and those who continue to suffer in frontline Kherson, a city constantly under Russian shelling.