Russia has created an online adoption catalog displaying nearly 300 kidnapped Ukrainian children, sparking international condemnation and accusations of digital child trafficking.
According to Mykola Kuleba, CEO of the Save Ukraine organization, the database allows users to sort children by age, gender, eye and hair color, personality traits, and health status.
“These children are presented like products in an e-commerce store,” Kuleba wrote on X. “They are not ‘war orphans.’ They had names, families, and Ukrainian citizenship.”
Kuleba claimed most of the children were taken from Luhansk and are now placed with Russian families or in camps. “Now, they’re being matched with Russian families, treated like animals in a pet adoption database,” he said.
“With a single click, a child is stripped of their identity, issued a Russian passport, and subjected to ideological control,” he added. “This is digital child trafficking, masked as bureaucracy.”
Ukrainian officials estimate 35,000 children have been taken since 2022. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin over the abductions in 2023.