ECHR holds hearing in the case of ten Ukrainian children Russia failed to return after occupying Crimea
On 22 September 2026, the European Court of Human Rights held a hearing in the case of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten Ukrainian children v. Russia. The Regional Center for Human Rights, the Almenda Center for Civic Education, the ZMINA Human Rights Centre, and the Public Interest Journalism Lab prepared a joint third-party submission. Lawyer Kateryna Rashevska presented their position before the Court.
The case concerns ten children who were between one and five years old when Russia occupied Crimea in 2014. All were in state care in residential institutions. After seizing the peninsula, Russia failed to return them to Ukraine and concealed information about their whereabouts. Their profiles later appeared in Russia’s adoption database.
In their submission, the human rights organisations and the Lab demonstrated how these children’s experiences form part of Russia’s systematic policies in the occupied territories. These include the forced imposition of Russian citizenship, Russification, indoctrination and militarisation, restrictions on leaving the occupied territories, and the placement of Ukrainian children with Russian families through guardianship and adoption.
“This case is not an isolated one; it is illustrative of a broader pattern. The situation of these ten children clearly reveals Russia’s wider policy and the evolution of its system for erasing Ukrainian identity. Russia introduced these measures back in 2014 through forced changes of citizenship, severing ties with Ukraine, and placing Ukrainian children with Russian families,” says Onysiia Syniuk, Head of the Analytical Department at the ZMINA Human Rights Centre.
According to Syniuk, following the full-scale invasion, these practices were adapted, accelerated, and extended to all occupied territories. The third-party intervention sought to provide the Court with a broader context and demonstrate the deliberate and planned nature of Russia’s actions against Ukrainian children.
The submission’s analysis of Russian policies was supported by testimony from journalist and Public Interest Journalism Lab Director Nataliya Gumenyuk, who visited occupied Crimea six times between 2014 and 2020. She observed how the Russian authorities used the imposition of Russian passports to control the population, pressured teachers, pushed the Ukrainian language out of schools, and involved children in military activities. After 2022, the Lab’s team documented similar actions in other occupied territories of Ukraine.
“Russia refined these methods in Crimea, then deployed them more rapidly and on a broader scale,” says Gumenyuk.
After occupying Crimea, Russia declared more than 4,000 Ukrainian children deprived of parental care to be Russian citizens. Only a few dozen children were able to leave the peninsula with their foster families. Another 22 teenagers refused the Russian citizenship the authorities sought to impose on them and left Simferopol for Kyiv on the last train.
Kateryna Rashevska stressed that the consequences of occupation for children extend far beyond a change in their legal status. Through education and upbringing, Russia seeks to cultivate their loyalty to the occupying state and reshape their national identity.
“The case we are discussing extends far beyond the legal status of ten children. We face two fundamental questions: what does occupation do to childhood itself? What has Russia learned from Crimea? Impunity for Russia’s violations of Ukrainian children’s rights in territories occupied since 2014 allowed those violations to become an administrative practice in territories occupied after 2022,” the lawyer said.
Mariia Sulialina, Head of Almenda, also emphasises the connection between impunity for violations in Crimea and their subsequent spread.
“From the first days of the occupation, Russia began building a system to destroy Ukrainian children’s identity and militarise them. Impunity in 2014 opened the door to the scaling up of crimes in 2022,” she says.
According to Sulialina, the case is important for protecting both the ten children on whose behalf the application was lodged and other Ukrainian children who remain targets of Russian policies in the occupied territories.
The ECHR will deliver its decision at a later date.
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