Interregional Coalition at the UN Calls for International Criminal Prosecution of State-Sponsored Militarization of Children in Armed Conflicts

At the UN General Assembly, governments presented a new international approach to accountability for the forced erasure of children’s identities and their militarization.

NEW YORK, September 24, 2026. At a high-level event held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, an interregional coalition of governments today called for Russia’s indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children to be prosecuted as a crime against humanity within a formal accountability mechanism.

The event, Ensuring Accountability for Ukraine, was co-organized by the Group of Friends of Accountability Following the Aggression Against Ukraine, led by the governments of Albania, Denmark, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Marshall Islands, in cooperation with Ukraine, the European Union, Canada, Estonia, and Lithuania.

The existing International Criminal Court arrest warrants concern unlawful deportation. However, there is currently no comparable international legal framework for prosecuting the systematic militarization and suppression of the identities of abducted minors as a matter of state policy. Today’s event aims to close this critical gap in international humanitarian law.

The Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA) for Ukraine, operating through Georgetown University’s International Criminal Justice Initiative (ICJI), presented a new report on the scale of Russia’s policy. According to the report, in addition to the more than 20,000 children whose deportation and forcible transfer by Russia have been documented, approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children in temporarily occupied territories are subjected to state indoctrination and militarization. These include at least 582,600 school-age children receiving education under curricula designed to erase their Ukrainian identity and prepare them for conscription into the Russian army.

Building on the legal analysis presented, the co-sponsors advocated for classifying state-sponsored indoctrination as persecution on national grounds, one of the underlying acts constituting crimes against humanity. Such a mechanism would characterize Russia’s actions not merely as unlawful cross-border transfers, but as a deliberate state system aimed at permanently erasing Ukrainian identity and forcibly assimilating children.

Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa stated: “The unlawful deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation constitute a gross violation of international law, as well as an attempt to deprive Ukraine of its future. Ukrainian children currently living under Russian control are subjected to militarization and indoctrination by Russia. This includes the forced imposition of Russian citizenship, followed by indoctrination in schools, military camps and military academies, and conscription into the Russian army. Russia’s violations against Ukrainian children are systematic in nature and may entail accountability for crimes against humanity.”

Maksym Maksymov, Head of Bring Kids Back UA, added: “This is the trajectory of Russia’s plan: isolate, reprogram, force them to fight against their own country. Each step reinforces the previous one. The circle closes. A child who was taught to forget Ukraine is now ready to fight against it. That is precisely why deportations are not the whole story. Deportation, forcible transfer, indoctrination and militarization form a single system that must be investigated as a unified state policy. It must be assessed according to the logic that sustains it, not merely its most visible component. Otherwise, the majority of affected children will remain invisible, and those responsible will escape justice.”

“Our overall conclusion is that the documented campaign of indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children carried out by Russian authorities violates various aspects of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law,” said Clint Williamson, Lead Coordinator of the ACA and Senior Director of the ICJI. “This requires consistent investigation, documentation, accountability for those responsible and, perhaps most importantly, support for the affected children and their families.”

Today, representatives of the U.S. Department of State announced a decision to support a $12 million program for the reintegration of children returned from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories and Russia. An additional $15 million for the search, return and reintegration of Ukrainian children has been submitted for consideration.

As of September 2026, Ukraine has officially confirmed 20,651 cases of the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. At the same time, the ACA report demonstrates that physical deportation is only one component of a broader, comprehensive state policy aimed at demographic engineering.

By recognizing the forced assimilation and militarization of children as the gravest international crimes for which individuals can be held accountable, the coalition seeks to establish a common international approach that will prevent states anywhere in the world from using minors as demographic and military resources in armed conflicts.

The legal framework and evidence presented in New York will directly inform the Pathways to Peace: Second International Conference on the Return of Ukrainian Children, Detained Civilians and Prisoners of War, jointly hosted by Canada, Ukraine and Norway in Toronto on September 28–29. The conference will address the establishment of legal frameworks, operational implementation, formalization of third-party mediation protocols, search mechanisms and cross-border partnerships to accelerate the return and reintegration of Ukrainian children whom Russia has forcibly deported or who remain in temporarily occupied territories.