‘Only evil’: Top Republicans detail Russia’s ‘horrific’ mass abductions of Ukrainian children

More than 200,000 children have been abducted by Russia since the start of its invasion of Ukrainesaid House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Emeritus Michael McCaul, R-Texas, citing estimates from the U.S.

“If a foreign adversary took 260,000 of our children and put them in indoctrination camps, I mean, how would we feel about that?” McCaul asked Fox News Digital.

The Texas Republican was recently term-limited in his time as chairman of the foreign affairs panel, but continues to work on the world stage, in part to raise awareness of Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. Among the most egregious is the relocation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, the vast majority of whom have not been returned.

Some parents would be forced to give up their children because Russian forces threatened to bomb their town, McCaul said, while other times they “just invade and capture the children.”

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The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in February 2023 against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, “for the war crime of illegal deportation of (children) and that of illegal transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine.”

Lvova-Belova was sanctioned by the US last year for her part in the scheme, which has been widely condemned by Western governments.

However, the Kremlin has denied allegations of war crimes and has maintained that it is doing humanitarian work by providing homes for Ukrainian children. reported NPR.

However, existing accounts of returned children and elsewhere paint a picture of forced indoctrination within Russia’s borders. Some of these children receive military training, according to the Yale Humanities Research Laboratoryprobably in preparation to fight on the front lines of Russia.

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Estimates of how many children have been taken to Russia vary from 20,000 to more than 250,000.

Part of McCaul’s work to raise awareness about Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian children will include a screening of a documentary titled“Children in the Fire: Ukraine’s War Through the Children’s Eyes” by filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky, at the Munich Security Conference next month.

He has also worked with the non-profit organization Save Ukraine, which works to return children.

“In the documentary, the kid is taken to this prison where it looks like they’re being adults, they’re basically using electrodes to hit them, you know, under their fingernails and genitalia, and it’s very, very barbaric,” McCaul said. .

He also held a hearing last year on the issue while chairing the foreign affairs committee.

McCaul said Russia’s abduction of children is one of the most vile of its alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions. He compared it to famous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s experiments on Jewish children and adults.

“It’s just evil. I mean, any civilization that would capture, I mean, it’s one thing if you’re on the battlefield killing the enemy, from their point of view,” McCaul said. “But capturing children to re-indoctrinate them is kind of reminiscent of Mengele’s experiments on children… And I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that in recent society.”

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The House last year passed a resolution condemning Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children in a bipartisan vote of 390-9.

“It’s horrible. I can’t imagine, as a parent, my kids being taken away from, you know, the Russian Federation and then not knowing where they are or what’s happening to them,” McCaul said. “But this is all part of Putin’s game, is to try to indoctrinate the children of Ukraine to go against their own country and their belief system.”