Canada is seeking more countries to communicate with Russia about the return of Ukrainian children, even as officials credit civil society organizations with most successful returns.
“We do need more mediators on returns,” Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir, Europe’s special envoy on Ukraine’s missing children, said at a conference in Toronto on Tuesday.
“But we also need to look at the fact that 95 per cent of the children that have been brought back have been brought back through NGOs within Ukraine, in cooperation with the government.”
Gylfadóttir urged international partners to focus resources on channels already shown to be effective — rather than spreading funds and attention across too many initiatives.
“We need to strengthen what is already working,” Gylfadóttir said.
The comments come as Canada acknowledges it has no direct channel to Moscow and is focused on finding others to communicate with Moscow.
“We do not have diplomatic relations ourselves, and so that’s very much a collective effort,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told Canadian Affairs at the conference.
Canada, along with Ukraine and Norway, hosted 83 countries and international organizations on Sept. 28 and 29 for the second international conference on the return of Ukrainian children, detained civilians and prisoners of war.
Stolen children
Since the start of the war in February 2022, Russian forces have forcibly removed Ukrainian children to Russia or to Russian-occupied territory within Ukraine.
They have done so by coercing parents to send children to summer camps that indoctrinate children, by transferring children from orphanages and hospitals, and by separating families at military checkpoints.
Today, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children are believed to be unlawfully detained by Russia.
At the conference, 18-year-old Dariia Tomashova, who grew up in Russian-occupied Crimea, described being subjected to military training at school and efforts to erase her Ukrainian identity.
“From the age of 10, girls were learning medical support and boys were being taught how to handle weapons. We were being trained to be Russian soldiers,” Tomashova said.
Ottawa suspended bilateral cooperation with Moscow in 2022, leaving Canada no direct channel to negotiate children’s returns.
“[W]e’re hardly the country they’re going to turn to to facilitate the actual return of children,” Global Affairs Canada official Alexandre Lévêque said at a Senate committee hearing last year.
Instead, Canada aims to bring together actors that could collaborate with Russia.
During Monday’s press conference, Anand described the search for interlocutors as a “fluid issue.” She pointed to India, Germany and the United States as countries Canada has relied on in the past.
Qatar has also emerged as a potential interlocutor.
Since 2023, Qatar has carried out more than 14 humanitarian operations involving Ukraine and Russia, helping reunite 87 Ukrainian children with their families, the country has said.
Anand met Qatar’s minister of state for international cooperation on Tuesday morning. However, Qatar’s official readout from the event did not mention Qatar would take on a specific role in the return of Ukrainian children.
Asked by Canadian Affairs how many children have been returned through diplomatic negotiations, Anand could not provide a specific figure.
“There is much work that is occurring behind the scenes,” she said.
“Are we relying on civil society and grassroots organizations to assist with this process? Yes. Are we hoping that diplomatic efforts will also be important? Yes.”
Beyond diplomacy
The conference highlighted the key role Ukrainian organizations have played in the return of children.
Bring Kids Back UA, for example, has facilitated the return of 2,651 children. Save Ukraine has been another important player.
Such organizations work with families and authorities, trace cases and arrange children’s return, sometimes through confidential operations.
Russia obstructs these groups’ efforts at every turn, says Maksym Maksymov, the head of Bring Kids Back UA.
“Under international humanitarian law, Russia has clear obligations: it must facilitate family reunification, keep records on every child in its custody, and share that information with international mechanisms — none of this is happening,” Maksymov told Canadian Affairs in an email.
“In fact, Russia does the opposite. It conceals where children are held, changes their names and dates of birth, and moves them to remote regions.
“Every child we bring home, we bring home despite Russia, not with its help.”
After the pledge
At this week’s conference, 48 countries and five international organizations endorsed a communiqué that commits them to expanding pathways for children’s return while sustaining support for Ukrainian civil society groups.
Bring Kids Back UA says participants can help most by providing technology, data and expertise, as well as predictable, multi-year funding for organizations carrying out returns.
“Search remains the most difficult and time-consuming part of the work, because Russia conceals children and alters their identities,” Maksymov said.
The Netherlands told delegates it supports a UN Development Programme project using DNA to establish family links for deported children. Anand said Canada has supported artificial intelligence and other technologies to trace children.
Maksymov also noted Canada could leverage its diplomatic relationships to “widen the coalition” or participating countries.
For Ukrainian officials, however, the test is whether those commitments translate into concrete action.
At the conference, Denys Uliutin, Ukraine’s minister of social policy, challenged countries to do more than simply endorse another declaration.
“Conferences carry a particular risk,” Uliutin said. “Everyone is satisfied. The communiqué is published. It is accurate. It is well-drafted, and 12 months pass without anyone being able to say what changed.”
Previous successful efforts were different because countries took responsibility for specific actions, he said.
“Qatar, the Holy See, South Africa, Lithuania, and the United Arab Emirates each took [on] something specific, and people came home because of it,” he said.
“Canada has to follow suit.”
