When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, its troops not only took over the territory – they also took thousands of children. Infants were taken from hospitals, teenagers were captured at checkpoints, orphans were removed from shelters and sent across the border to be “re-educated”.
The Kremlin called it a patriotic acceptance. Under international law it is something else entirely: forced deportation – A war crime and one of the five acts that can constitute genocide,
Nearly three years later, humanitarian groups estimate 18,000 to 20,000 Ukrainian children Be trapped inside Russia or Russian-occupied territories. Some live in state orphanages, others in Russian foster families who have sworn to raise them as “true Russians”. Some have been sent to military training centers where they are taught to fight against their country of birth. Many have disappeared into Russia’s gray bureaucracy or, worse, into exploitation.
At the Pentagon I helped write and manage policy for biometric and identification systems. These systems and the federal government’s information sharing architecture allow U.S. agencies to find and track known terrorists and, more benignly, speed service members through TSA PreCheck.
As an Army intelligence officer who started in counterterrorism and later as a Russia analyst, I realized early in the war that Ukraine’s missing children would not be lost forever. The US and its allies already have systems in place to trace people who do not want to be found. The same tools can be used to find victims of state-sponsored kidnappings.
Yes, Russia can give new names and fake passports to these children. But if the US has the proper authorities and network of partners, we should be able to find almost all of them. We can provide this service in almost any conflict zone at low cost using existing information-sharing arrangements. We simply have to choose to employ them for this humanitarian purpose.
a bipartisan bill recently passed in the senate It would authorize U.S. law-enforcement and national-security agencies to use that biometric infrastructure to locate abducted Ukrainian children. This will allow analysts to match photos, passports and border records in the database to find out where children are being held or taken. data can be fed Interpol “Yellow Notice,” Every checkpoint across Europe and North America is being alerted. This will give Ukraine a live map of where its children are and a clear path to bringing them home.
That legislation is now in the House of Representatives. It would cost relatively little to pass – about $15 million a year, by my calculations – but its moral impact would be enormous. Few investments can generate more goodwill for America than reuniting thousands of stolen sons and daughters with their families.
Some would argue that this is the job of charities and NGOs, not governments. This misunderstands both the scale and intent of the crime. Russia is not misplacing children – it is disappearing them, rewriting their identities and placing them with new families. No volunteer organization can compete with a state bent on this level of deception, and no NGO has the tools of the US government and its information-sharing partners.
Others are concerned about the expansion of intelligence tools for humanitarian purposes. But this is not an extension; It is a redeployment of existing, governed capacity against genocide. The system already works round the clock to track terrorists and smugglers. The only question is whether we will also use it to reunite families.
The Senate has already taken action. Now the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees face a simple decision, whether we should authorize the United States to help locate these children and turn this information over to the Ukrainian government.
Eventually this war will end. When this happens, abducted children should not be used as a bargaining chip. I agree with First Lady Melania Trump: Repatriation must be a prerequisite for peace. The technology exists. The legal framework is in place. The cost is nominal. All that is left is the will to act.
Russia calls the abductions “patriotic adoptions.” History will remember this as a generational crime. Congress can help end it cheaply. Pass the bill. Start the system. Bring these kids home.
Matt Tavares is a former Pentagon official with two decades of experience in U.S. national security, now working in the private sector focusing on emerging technologies and the evolving nature of armed conflict.
