Ukrainian parents are seeking their children, who they say were taken into Russia during the war. The Free Press' Aidan Stretch joins CBS News 24/7 with more.

Kyiv

The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that over 150,000 people are unaccounted for on both sides of the war in Ukraine, with around 20,000 Ukrainian children reportedly deported to Russia since the 2022 invasion. Families, such as that of seven-year-old Stanislav, have spent years searching for missing children, often encountering bureaucratic obstacles and conflicting legal guardianships.

Russian authorities claim to be relocating children from dangerous areas as a humanitarian effort, but experts and investigators report that many are separated from their families during filtration processes and are not properly registered, violating international law. Efforts to track and repatriate these children are hindered by administrative barriers, leaving many families without answers to their children's whereabouts.

Ukrainians plead for help to find missing children taken into Russia

As of August, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimates more than 150,000 cases of people who are unaccounted for on both sides of the war. Some families say children were taken by the other side and never seen again. Free press writer Aiden Stretch details the case of one such family who spent years searching for their little boy. They say then seven-year-old Stanislav was taken by Russian authorities during the beginning of the war. In her search efforts, Stanislav's sister later found a picture of him on a Russian adoption website. Aiden Stretch joins us now. We should note that the Free Press is owned by our parent company, Paramount Skydance. Aiden, this is such a disturbing and troubling story that you reported on in the Free Press. What did you learn while researching it? And it's absolutely chilling for any parent to find a picture of their child on a website for adopted children. Yeah, it absolutely is, Vlad. So what we're talking about here generally is an estimated 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been forcibly deported by Russian authorities into Russia since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is, of course, a story of horrific war crimes, of high-level diplomatic efforts to get the children home. It's also a story, though, of extremely complex missing persons cases. You have 20,000 young children spread out across the largest country on Earth. And that's really the lens that I took to this story, is looking at what are the efforts actually look like to track and bring these children home. And that's what led me to Stanislav Smetana and his sister Dasha. Dasha has been looking for Stanislav with the help of human rights investigators since he was taken from a southeastern city in Ukraine during the opening days of the war. And following Russia's efforts to try and conceal his location, give him a new identity, new documentation, and a string of Ukrainian child services mix-ups, his case has fallen through the cracks. His sister no longer knows where he is. A human rights investigator told me that she thinks he's probably already been adopted by a new Russian family. And this is tragically something that's more and more common for many Ukrainian families who have lost children throughout the war. So, Aidan, we're talking about some 18,000 children that have gone missing since the war started. It's an unimaginable number. Can you explain to our viewers how—I mean, are they soldiers, Russian soldiers that are grabbing Ukrainian children? And what is the—and this may be, like, the indelicate word for it, but what's the marketplace that they're trying to address here? I just want to understand the mechanics of how these children are taken and what happens to them, what you believe happens to them once they are in Russia. Yeah, so, one thing that I try and do in the article, and I'll try and do now, is explain the Russian rationale for why they're taking these kids, how they're taking them, and then explain the truth of what's really going on. So, what Russia says is that they're taking these children from dangerous areas in Ukraine that have been decimated by the war, bringing them into children's facilities across Russia, and then giving them and putting them up for adoption for new Russian families as a humanitarian effort to rescue them. Even in the isolated instances in which this may be the case—and experts say there are very few cases, more frequently these children are separated from their parents during filtration in occupied territories—but in the isolated instances in which these children are taken from dangerous areas during the war, Russia has still violated the Geneva Convention by not registering these children in any sort of database and trying to thwart Ukrainian efforts to track them and repatriate them. So, what Russia really has done is, in addition to taking these children, they've weaponized the bureaucracy of this issue to make it as hard as humanly possible for anyone to return these children to the families from which they were taken. And so, finally, Aidan, let's talk about Stanislav's family and what they're doing, the efforts that they're doing to try and bring this little boy home. I mean, this is the epitome of love, right? You will stop at nothing. You will keep doing something. And probably, hopefully, they find him, but if they're unsuccessful, I assume they're going to be looking for him for the rest of their lives. That's right. So, Dasha, who's Stanislav's older sister, she recently turned 18 and put in an official request to become Stanislav's legal guardian. She did that because Russian authorities have in the past said that they will negotiate only with blood relatives of the children in their custody. The issue is that because Stanislav's case has been lost among these many different cases, Ukraine has already given him a new legal guardian, which has made Dasha's efforts to get him home very difficult. Such a sad story, especially on the eve of Hanukkah and Christmas. Aidan Stretch, always incredible reporting, writing, my friend, for The Free Press and for us here at CBS News. We appreciate you.

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