Olena Zelenska at the PACE debate on Ukrainian children

First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska took part in an urgent debate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where a report was heard and a draft resolution on Ukrainian children forcibly displaced by Russia was adopted. 

As a reminder, Putin recently legalized the deportation of residents of the annexed territories of Ukraine who refused to accept Russian citizenship.

First, the President’s wife thanked the participants of the PACE plenary session for their attention to the issue of forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

“This topic is very painful for Ukraine. Thank you for joining the fight for our children and their childhood. We have a saying: “There are no other people’s children”. You prove it by being here now,” the President’s wife said.

Olena Zelenska then told the stories of children abducted by the Russian occupiers.

“These stories show all this terrible technology, how the occupiers abduct Ukrainian children. Most often, by killing their parents or forcibly separating them from their families. They also take away entire orphanages and boarding schools,” the first lady said.

The First Lady emphasized that 361 children have been returned to date, but there are a large number of Ukrainian children who are still in captivity. 

“But there is a figure that is even more impressive – 19,390. This is the number of children who are still in Russian captivity. And this is only the data that has been confirmed. But even this number is not final, because what happens to children in the occupied territories is unknown. Behind each figure is a broken life not only of a child, but also of his or her entire family, of all those who have not had peace for months,” Olena Zelenska noted.

PACE debate

The President ‘s wife emphasized that all possible effective assistance was needed to free them.