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First Lady Melania Trump’s back-channel efforts to effect the return of Ukrainian children who’ve been kidnapped by Russian forces have been lauded by both President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — and by children’s advocates who’ve been sounding the alarm over Moscow’s practice of seizing kids and forcibly re-educating them in Russia to erase their Ukrainian identities. But some of those same advocates now fear she is making herself an unwitting tool of the Russian leader and helping whitewash Moscow’s culpability for the practice. Her behind-the-scenes work has already resulted in at least one victory that she announced at the White House earlier this month, telling reporters that eight children — seven Ukrainian and one Russian — who had been taken from their families in contested regions of Ukraine were being returned after talks between the first lady’s office and Russian government officials. But former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told CNN that while Mrs. Trump’s work was laudable, Putin’s willingness to work through her is a part of a calculated strategy. “Every returned child is wonderful for that family and that child, so that is good. But there are more than 19,000 of these, and I do think that Putin is cynically using this in an attempt to make the Trumps more sympathetic to him,” he said. “I think the first lady is genuinely interested in getting the Ukrainian children home. But the fact is that Putin is not. He could return all of these kids and end the war tomorrow if he wanted,” he added. Trump, a former model who was born in what is now Slovenia when that country was part of the former Yugoslavia, made the stunning announcement in the Grand Foyer of the White House. She told reporters that “much [had] unfolded” since she sent a letter in August to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the fate of the thousands of children who have been taken to Russia after being seized by Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine. The first lady said Putin had responded in writing to signal a “willingness to engage” with her “directly,” and provided her with “details regarding the Ukrainian children residing in Russia.” “Since then, President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children,” Trump said. Trump also told reporters that “both sides” of the talks had participated in “several back-channel meetings and calls” and had “agreed to cooperate with each other for the benefit of all people involved in this war.” In the weeks since her announcement advocates have grown concerned. In an interview with CNN, Yale Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond said Mrs. Trump’s announcement that eight children were being reunited with their families glossed over the scale of the problem. One study by the Institute of the Study of War released in March cited Ukrainian government statistics stating that nearly 19,500 children had been deported by Russia but stressed that the actual number “is likely to be much higher” because Russia “frequently targets vulnerable children without anyone to speak for them.” Raymond told CNN the actual number of kidnapped Ukrainian kids is closer to 35,000 and criticized the first lady for touting the return of just eight. “Everyone is moving very carefully, but everyone is clear on the point that the first lady’s office needs to hear: Thank you — but it is 35,000 kids, not seven or eight,” he said. Raymond also noted that Mrs. Trump’s description of the children as having been “lost” whitewashes the fact that Russia’s treatment of them amounts to violations of the law of war. “It is kids who were taken as a war crime and kids who are being militarized and were abducted by a state — not lost in the war. Language matters,” Raymond said. The Yale research lab issued a report in September stating that Russia had spirited the kidnapped children away to a network of at least 210 locations including military bases, orphanages and other camps for re-education and in some cases combat training. For his part, President Trump has not made the return of the children a priority and has equivocated on the exact number of kidnapped Ukrainian minors in Russian hands. During his sit-down with Zelensky last week, he told reporters “nobody really knows” how many have been taken since the start of the war in 2022. “Some people say it’s 20,000 and some people say it’s 300,” he said.
