An open letter from Bernard-Henri Lévy, Sting, Andriy Yermak, Sean Penn, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Marina Abramovic, Elina Svitolina, and Salman Rushdie.

The Stolen Children of Ukraine: A Moral Emergency

Since February 24, 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been forcibly removed from their homes in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. They were not lost to war. They were taken. Taken by an occupying army, removed from their families, their schools, their language, their very lives as they knew them.

In response, Ukraine launched the initiative Bring Kids Back UA, under the direction of President Volodymyr Zelensky. It’s a rescue effort carried out in cooperation with international partners and civil society, aimed at locating these children, returning them home, and supporting their reintegration. The task is massive. Because what Ukraine is facing is not only a humanitarian crisis — it is a deliberate campaign to erase the identity of the whole generation and sever all paths back.

According to independent investigators, children illegally deported into Russia are often placed with unfamiliar families, in closed institutions, or military-style camps. These are not safe havens. These are sites of re-education and pressure, where children are isolated, deprived, and, in some cases, barely fed. Some are told to forget their names. Some are told Ukraine never existed.

After the child is forced to renounce their Ukrainian identity, taught hatred towards Ukraine, and enrolled in paramilitary structures to be groomed for military service, and later sent to the front lines. Just like the children kidnapped by ISIS and turned into "little lions of the caliphate," the kidnappers turn Ukrainian kids into child soldiers in the ranks of the Russian army.

The fate of most of these children is still unknown.

This Russification of Ukraine’s youth is, however, part of Putin’s campaign to exterminate Ukraine as a nation and one of his contributions, along with his army and ideologues, to the global history of infamy.

This act is not just a violation of international law. It is an offense to humanity.

We, the undersigned, committed in our support of Ukraine since the first day of the Russian full-scale war of aggression, rise against this abomination.

We believe that locating, identifying, and returning home every single abducted child is the absolute prerequisite for a just and lasting peace.

We invite good-willed women and men, who find it inconceivable for peace to be built on a cemetery of innocent souls, to join us and raise your voices. Help amplify this tragedy. Pressure your representatives. Support the work of those who are tracing these stolen children and bringing them home.

We ask you to act not as diplomats, elected officials, or analysts, but as humans.

As parents. As people who understand what it means to lose a loved one, and what it means to never get them back.

Let us be united, regardless of nation, profession, or ideology.

Let us say it together, clearly and without hesitation:

Children are not negotiable. Bring them back. Now.