On 4 March 2026, Alina Rohach, Project Manager of the Spain and Latin America Cooperation Program at the Transatlantic Dialogue Center, spoke with Azteca Noticias in a segment hosted by José Antonio García that brought urgent attention to the forced transfer and abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian authorities.
Opening the segment, García noted that the war is often discussed primarily through political and territorial lenses, while a major humanitarian issue has been pushed aside: the abduction of more than “20,000” Ukrainian children. Rohach emphasized that this is not a secondary topic, but a human rights emergency with long-term consequences for families, communities, and Ukraine’s future.
Rohach stressed that Russia has built mechanisms to “russify” and assimilate Ukrainian children in order to erase their Ukrainian identity. The segment described children being pressured to speak and behave as Russians and being given new identities through adoption processes in Russia. Rohach also highlighted the reported existence of “re-education” camps where children are compelled to study Russian language and history and are prohibited from speaking Ukrainian or referencing Ukraine.
The report further underscored the scale and duration of the issue, linking the beginning of abductions to the 2014 occupation of Crimea. It cited NGO suspicions that the number of affected minors may be far higher, with children reportedly distributed across dozens to hundreds of camps in Russia and Belarus. While just over “2,000” children have returned, the segment emphasized the severe psychological consequences and the urgent reality that thousands remain separated from their families as the war continues.
Watch the Azteca Noticias fragment via the link.
This project was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.