More than 200,000 children have been abducted by Russia since the start of its invasion of Ukraine, Chairman Emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said, citing U.S. estimates.
“If a foreign adversary took 260,000 of our kids, and they were in indoctrination camps, I mean, how would we feel about that?” McCaul asked Fox News Digital.
The Texas Republican was recently term-limited in his time as chairman of the foreign affairs panel, but he is continuing to work on the world stage, in part by raising awareness about Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. Among the most egregious is the relocation of thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia, the vast majority of whom have not been returned.
Some parents would be coerced into giving up their children because Russian forces were threatening to bomb their city, McCaul said, while other times “they just invade and capture the children.”
PUTIN, XI VOW TO ‘DEEPEN’ ALLIANCE HOURS AFTER TRUMP RE-ENTERS THE WHITE HOUSE
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, left, discussed his efforts to bring awareness to the thousands of Ukrainian children taken into President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. (Getty Images)
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in February 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, “for the war crime of unlawful deportation of [children] and that of unlawful transfer of [children] from occupied areas of Ukraine.”
Lvova-Belova was sanctioned last year by the U.S. over her part in the scheme, which has been widely condemned by western governments.
However, the Kremlin has denied war crime allegations and maintained it is doing humanitarian work facilitating homes for Ukrainian children, NPR reported.
Existing accounts from returned children and elsewhere paint a picture of forced indoctrination within Russia’s borders, however. Some of those children are…
