Zelenskyy: Modi Can Use His Influence to Persuade Putin to Return Stolen Ukrainian Children

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, given his influence, can personally call Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin and help return at least some of the forcibly deported Ukrainian children.

This was stated by Zelenskyy in an interview with The Times of India.

Answering the question of what exactly India can do to help return forcibly deported children to Ukraine, Zelenskyy noted that, first, the country can join The International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. Secondly, it can support the communique of the Peace Summit, the third point of which concerns the return of children.

"Call Putin and tell him who he is. And make him return the children. Modi can do it, he has a big influence. Tell him directly: ‘How many Ukrainian children will you give me so that I can return them to Ukraine?’ Directly tell him: ‘ Give me a thousand children, I will return them to Ukraine.’ This is a real step." said Zelenskyy, adding that every influential person like Prime Minister Modi could return at least a thousand children.

Tens of thousands of children were deported and stolen from Ukraine by Russia. The actual number of children killed in the war is unknown. 

"No one knows the real number of children killed today. Unfortunately, we can definitely state that tens of thousands of children were deported and stolen. We will find out how many of them were killed after the war," Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s President stated that thousands of stolen children had their names and surnames changed and were forced to speak a different language. Some of them, who were teenagers, were sent to war against their own country. 

“This is simply terrible. The children were not returned to their relatives. And, unfortunately, while dozens of thousands were stolen, we returned less than a thousand," he added.

Zelenskyy stressed that this issue should be raised at the meeting of the G20 countries, where India could also invite Ukraine.

At the beginning of October, the Ukrainian Ombudsman for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, reported that Russia has illegally deported over 20,000 Ukrainian children, and warned that approximately 1.5 million more children, currently in Russian-occupied territories, face the risk of deportation.