A bipartisan pair of senators is looking to bring Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. before the Senate to testify on Russia’s campaign of abducting Ukrainian children. That charge is the basis for a war crimes indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told The Hill on Wednesday that they are working to hold a hearing in the Senate Appropriations subcommittee of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on the issue of Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children.
Graham and Schatz, the top members of the committee, said they intend to invite Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Alexander Darchiev to testify in the hearing, although a date has not been set.
Schatz said it would be important for Darchiev to appear before the committee “for accountability. This is a real atrocity, and the American government should help to establish the record and try to remedy what has been done,” he told The Hill.
He said that the senators would likely issue an invitation.
“I’m almost certain we can’t compel a foreign person to come,” Schatz said.
The Hill has reached out to the Russian embassy for comment.
The hearing will focus on Russia’s abduction of tens of thousands of children and efforts to return them to Ukraine and their families. Independent assessments have identified at least 20,000 Ukrainian children taken by Russia during the war, but Russian officials have claimed that number is around 700,000.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 for “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
An arrest warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
The war crimes charge against Russia is also the basis for Graham’s bipartisan bill to label Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism, unless it can certify that it has returned all abducted children.
The bill advanced out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month, but it’s unlikely to go to the floor without President Trump’s blessing.
Still, the issue of kidnapped children has been elevated to a top priority for the White House.
First Lady Melania Trump has stepped forward as a high-profile advocate for their return, exchanging letters with Putin as part of her appeal for the children.
The Ukrainian government and non-governmental organizations have worked over the course of Russia’s war to identify, rescue and return Ukrainian children that have been swept up in what researchers and lawyers say is a systematic campaign by the Kremlin to seize children, erase their Ukrainian identities and reeducate them as Russian citizens and prepare them for military service to fight against Ukraine.
In February 2024, the Helsinki Commission hosted a hearing with testimony from children rescued from Ukraine, who described being trafficked into Russia as their homes came under occupation from the invading forces.
In December, Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) presented a report to the United Nations Security Council saying it had identified 314 Ukrainian children placed in a “systematic, Kremlin-directed program of coerced adoption and fostering.”
President Trump halted funding for the HRL when cutting assistance through the State Department when he came into office, but said that he supports the return of kidnapped Ukrainian children.
The HRL has continued its work and in September released a report on Russia’s militarization of Ukraine’s children.
Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the lab at the Yale School of Public Health, said in an interview with the BBC that Russia is expanding its network of reeducation and military camps and currently has 210 camps across 3,500 miles.
“It’s extremely worrying,” he said. “…new camps are being established, at least two we believe are under construction now, that are part of what’s called… the warrior program, which is specifically training children for combat.”
Raymond said the HRL’s work is being carried out with the intent of being used as evidence in a court of law in the ICC cases against Putin and Lvova-Belova and potentially others, but said political and diplomatic pressure needs to be brought to bear on Russia and resources need to be infused into efforts to document Russia’s campaign and locate kidnapped children.
“There needs to be maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Russia to do what they should have done under the Geneva conventions three years ago, which is to register the children so we know who they have in their custody and where they are,” Raymund said.
