A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report uncovered Russia’s systematic deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children, raising allegations of crimes against humanity.

In a Dec. 3 report, HRL exposed Russia’s deliberate and systematic program of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children into coerced adoption and fostering — a program that researchers describe as one of the largest missing persons crises since World War II.

“The evidence compiled by the Humanitarian Research Lab researchers could lead to additional charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin; Maria Lvova-Belova, presidential commissioner for children’s rights; and other officials involved in the extensive forced relocation program in the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Oona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, told the News.

Yale HRL found at least 314 Ukrainian children, primarily from the Eastern Donbas region, who since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have been forcibly deported and listed in Russian adoption databases. The program aimed to assimilate these children into Russian society, erasing their Ukrainian identities.

Many of these children were nationalized as Russian citizens and placed with families under a program ordered and directed by Putin.

“This whole program is an act of deception by Russia,” Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of the HRL, explained. “Underlying it was the placement of children in a database where it looked as if they came from places in Russia … when in fact, they were from Ukraine.”

The deception extended beyond databases. According to the HRL, Russia had altered personally identifiable information, or PII, and even manipulated adoption profiles to disguise the Ukrainian origin of the children, presenting them instead as Russian citizens. 

“This was a game of cat and mouse between the HRL researchers and the Russians,” Raymond said. “We were constantly worried that the databases would be taken down, but through incredible dedication, our team uncovered children hiding in plain sight.”

Connecting the dots: A wall that exposed the Russian operation

Yale’s investigation into Russia’s forced adoption program was anything but straightforward. Over 20 months, researchers meticulously pieced together fragments of data scattered across open sources, relying on sharp observation and advanced technology. Among the breakthroughs in their work was a single clue that changed the course of the investigation: the discovery of a wall.

“The original lead was paint on a wall,” Raymond recounted. The image, taken in a Russian facility, featured children standing in front of a teal and yellow wall. This wall matched the backdrop of another photograph that had surfaced online of children being transported to a “temporary accommodation center” in Russia.

“Russia had made a mistake in their tradecraft. By not changing the location, they unintentionally left a visual breadcrumb,” Raymond said.

Yet the wall was only the starting point of HRL’s investigation. 

Researchers utilized high-resolution satellite imagery and database cross-referencing to confirm children’s movements across Russia. 

“The critical use of satellite imagery in this report was the planes,” Raymond explained. “Being able to use archival, commercially available imagery to identify planes at locations … we correlated these findings with visual data from on-the-ground sources to build a complete picture of how these children were moved.”

Later, investigators also uncovered evidence of deliberate obfuscation by Russian authorities. 

Leaked government documents detailed meetings where the relocation of children was discussed. These documents provided insight into how Russian officials coordinated efforts to move children, create legal justifications for their adoption and hide the children’s Ukrainian origin.

From linguistics to satellite image analysis, team members came together to discover and reconstruct the movements and identities of the 314 Ukrainian children. Half of these children were siblings, further complicating efforts to track and confirm their identities.

“Each child identified had to meet a high-confidence standard,” Raymond said. “We used the NATO Admiralty system for evaluating evidence and corroborated findings with independent sources.”

This included verifying the children’s origins in Ukraine, matching their presence at transit locations, and identifying them in Russian databases and records while keeping the investigation absolutely confidential.

The team created detailed dossiers on each kid they could identify for Ukrainian law enforcement, the Ukrainian government and the International Criminal Court to facilitate the children’s return.

The toll of deportations and path to accountability

The forced deportation and coerced adoption of Ukrainian children have inflicted profound psychological and emotional harm on both the children and their families. As detailed in the HRL report, the program has “separated siblings, erased cultural identities, and placed children in unfamiliar and hostile environments” where they were subjected to “Russification” efforts.

Caitlin Howarth, an HRL researcher, said that the team found records of children who experienced “acute and prolonged psychological distress.”

“One child was forced to choose between accepting a guardianship and losing her three younger siblings,” Howarth said. “Another showed signs of social withdrawal and depression after being placed with a Russian family.”

At the program’s core was an effort to sever the children’s ties to their Ukrainian heritage. The systemic renunciation of Ukrainian citizenship, combined with the imposition of Russian identities, cut off children from their families, language, and homeland.

Such an account only represents a sliver of the larger issue. “We know that what we have documented is only the tip of the iceberg,” Howarth noted.

According to Hathway, the report aims to provide facts and figures to accountability mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court and Ukrainian criminal courts. 

“The HRLs’ legal analysis of the evidence they collected establishes a basis for potential crimes against humanity, war crimes and perhaps even part of a broader case of genocide,” Hathway explained in the School of Public Health Q&A about the report.

By providing evidence of the ongoing forced deportation, the HRL can provide evidence for the courts to take action against Putin, Maria Lyova-Belova and other officials who have been involved in this process. 

Previously, HRL research reports have been the basis of the Criminal Court’s prosecutions of senior Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This Wednesday,  Raymond appeared before the United Nations to present the HRL’s findings.

“The real credit goes to the investigators, who worked with incredible dedication to ensure these children were not lost in the shadows,” Raymond said.

The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014.