DNA kits to be used to reunite abducted Ukrainian children with families following ‘one of the worst war crimes we can imagine’

Blog post | 13-02-2025 | Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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Roos Bos is responsible for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ efforts to tackle child abduction. ‘This issue originates in 2014,’ she explains, ‘when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. That’s when we see the first reports of missing and abducted children. Since the large-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the numbers have grown drastically. It quickly became clear what was happening to these missing children. Russia claimed it was saving the children – pretending that the disappearances were humanitarian evacuations – but in fact it was simply abducting them.’

‘The children were, and are still being, purposefully removed from Ukraine, with some being adopted into Russian families against their will. There is only one reason Russia is doing this: the aim is to destroy Ukraine’s identity and culture and undermine its existence as an independent country.’

Re-education camps

‘The children are usually taken to a “re-education” camp first,’ Roos explains, ‘where they are exposed to Russian propaganda. They are not allowed to speak Ukrainian, and told that their parents abandoned them.’

She goes on: ‘Some children are illegally adopted into Russian families from these camps. Since the large-scale invasion began, Crimea has been used as a “hub” for the illegal movement of Ukrainian citizens, including all those children. Russia is abducting them from occupied areas including Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and bringing them to Crimea, from where they are often deported to Russia.’

‘One of the most distressing parts of this story is that some children are forced to undergo military training so they can be sent to fight against fellow Ukrainians. This really affects me deeply because it echoes my own family history. In the Second World War my Polish grandfather was forced by the Germans to fight in the Wehrmacht. Eventually he managed to surrender to allied forces and helped to liberate the southern Netherlands. Forcing people to participate in acts of war against their own country is exceptionally barbaric and, moreover, a war crime.’

Ukrainian police test a family's DNA.

International Freedom Award

The Netherlands is committed to preventing abductions and deportations and helping to reunite missing children with their families. In 2024 the then Prime Minister Mark Rutte awarded the Four Freedoms Award to Save Ukraine, an organisation that conducts missions to return abducted Ukrainian children. The work done by organisations like Save Ukraine is crucial. It’s not only about reuniting abducted children with their parents. As Mr Rutte stated at the time, every child saved is living proof of Putin’s war crimes. The Netherlands supports Save Ukraine by funding mental healthcare projects that help vulnerable children returned from occupied territory.

But the Netherlands’ efforts go back further. Back in 2023 Wopke Hoekstra, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, put the issue on the international agenda in a joint press conference with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock. Following this, in early 2024 an agreement between the ministry and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was reached under which the Netherlands would fund the DNA kits now being provided to the Ukrainian police.

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DNA kits

The special DNA kits are an important tool for the police in fighting child abductions. ‘Firstly, the DNA of family members of missing Ukrainian children can be tested, so that this information can later be used to show that parents and children belong together,’ Roos explains. ‘This makes it more likely that families can be reunited. Moreover, it allows the national police to establish an extensive DNA database. This will help gather evidence of child abductions, which will support prosecution of war crimes by courts including the International Criminal Court.’

‘And that’s crucial,’ Roos stresses. ‘There’s a good reason that the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued international arrest warrants for President Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, specifically for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.’