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Melania Trump Advocates for Forcefully Abducted Ukrainian Children in Personal Letter to Putin
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US First Lady Melania Trump has directly appealed to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the issue of Ukrainian children taken from occupied territories, Reuters reported on August 16.
Her personal letter was handed to Putin by President Donald Trump during his nearly three-hour meeting with the Russian leader in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15.
While the contents of the message have not been made public, officials confirmed it centered on the fate of children forcibly removed during the war.
A senior US official told Reuters that the letter was a “personal initiative” of the First Lady, who has not participated directly in the administration’s foreign policy agenda but sought to highlight the humanitarian consequences of the war.
Ukraine has repeatedly denounced the transfer of children to Russia and Russian-occupied regions as a violation of international law. Kyiv estimates that more than 20,000 minors have been abducted since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukrainian authorities, backed by international organizations, argue that the practice constitutes a war crime and falls under the U.N. Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.
The United Nations Human Rights Office has documented systemic abuses inflicted on Ukrainian children, including cases of separation from families, forced adoption, and placement into Russian state institutions. In its most recent assessment, the U.N. warned that “the scale of violations is alarming” and called on Moscow to provide access for independent monitoring.
Earlier, it was reported that under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, several Ukrainian children were rescued from occupied territories where they had faced Russification and pressure to join the Russian military.
