Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly has announced an international gathering in Ottawa on Oct. 30-31 to create a plan for the return of prisoners of war, deported civilians and children back to Ukraine. Ms. Joly speaks with reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons before question period in Ottawa, on Sept. 25.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The Canadian government is hosting a late October meeting of foreign countries to work out an arrangement for repatriating Ukrainian children abducted by Moscow and bringing about a full prisoner exchange in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced the gathering for Oct. 30-31 in Ottawa and her department in a statement said countries will craft a “concrete plan, guided by the principles of international human rights and humanitarian law, for the return of prisoners of war as well as deported civilians and children back to Ukraine.” Organizers also include Norway and Ukraine.
These matters form part of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan which lays out what Kyiv considers its preconditions for an end to Moscow’s war on Ukraine. It includes a complete Russian withdrawal to pre-2014 borders before Russia seized and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
More than 19,540 Ukrainian children have been illegally transferred to Russia by Moscow’s occupying forces in Ukraine, the country’s ambassador to Canada said Wednesday. Only 860 have been returned home, according to envoy Yuliya Kovaliv.
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The Ottawa gathering will take place about one week before the U.S. presidential election, the outcome of which could have a significant impact on the future of the war. Earlier this month Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance laid out what were purportedly the outlines of a settlement that Donald Trump would seek if elected president, including a “demilitarized zone” at the current lines of the conflict, as well as assurances that Ukraine would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance. Both items would represent a reversal from Democratic President Joe Biden’s policy on Ukraine.
Moscow says peace talks can only start if Kyiv abandons swaths of Ukraine to Russia and drops its NATO membership bid.
Canada and Norway are co-chairs of one of 10 international working groups helping to advance Ukraine’s peace plan, and their remit is item four, which seeks the return of prisoners of war, detained civilians, and illegally transferred and deported children. Canada and Ukraine also co-lead the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, an effort now backed by 40 countries.
In March, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on the basis of reasonable grounds to believe that each bears responsibility for the war crime of “unlawful deportation of population (children) and of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
In a statement, Andrii Sybiha, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, called the release of all prisoners and deported persons from Russian captivity, including children, to be his country’s top priority.
Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. ambassador at large for global criminal justice, said in an August, 2024, statement the abducted children’s Ukrainian identities are being erased. “These children are too often given Russian names and passports, subjected to systematic Russian ‘military-patriotic’ indoctrination programs, punished for speaking Ukrainian, told lies about the fates of their families and communities, and even placed up for adoption into Russian families,” she said.
Over all, Ukraine’s Ms. Kovaliv said, about 42,000 citizens of Ukraine are listed on a registry of missing persons, including military personnel. These people may have been abducted, captured as prisoners of war, or killed.
She said that Kyiv had so far obtained the release of 3,672 Ukrainians in 57 exchanges with Russia. Most of the returned are combatants who became prisoners of war.