A central focus of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign was his claim that a return to office would enable him to negotiate an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia “on day one.”
In the months following his victory, the Trump administration has led talks between the two parties aimed at reaching a ceasefire. In November 2025, the US released their framework for a peace plan that was drafted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, the Special Presidential Envoy for Peace Missions, and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law who had been involved in negotiating the Abraham Accords with Israel and neighbouring Arab states during President Trump’s first term.
The most recent efforts to advance this proposal took place in late December at Mara-a-Lago, President Trump’s residence in Florida. President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Florida on December 28 to negotiate key issues such as security guarantees and territorial concessions.
The American 28 point peace plan that has been presented to both Russia and Ukraine includes provisions under which the United States would recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as Russian territory. Crimea and Luhansk are currently occupied by Russian forces, while Ukraine would be required to withdraw from Donetsk. Taken together, these terms would grant Russia full control over Ukraine’s Donbas region, a strategically significant area that links Crimea to Russia and is home to major coal reserves and steel production.
Critics of the US proposed peace plan argue that it not only legitimizes Russia’s imperial ambitions but also poses a serious threat to Ukrainian children.
Thousands of children thought to be abducted
The Ukrainian government estimates that nearly 20,000 children have been abducted or forcibly transferred by Russian forces to Russia or Russian-controlled territories since the full scale invasion in 2022.
Other bodies, like the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, argue that number is higher, estimating that as many as 35,000 children have been abducted by Russia.
Russian officials, including the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, claim any transfer of children is merely a humanitarian act to remove them from dangerous conflict zones.
In 2022, Russian affiliated officials in occupied territories had told Ukrainian parents their children were being sent to summer camps for 2-3 weeks to protect them from the fighting.
However, Ukrainians argue that Russia is not removing children from these areas for their safety with the intention of returning them once conditions stabilize. Many of these children who had purportedly gone to summer camp never returned.
Instead, Russia is taking these children with the intent of “russifying” them through the facilitation of adoptions to Russian families where “their names, date, and place of birth are changed”, said Kateryna Rashevshka, a legal expert at the Regional Centre for Human Rights in Kyiv, making it extremely difficult to track them down and repatriate them.
In areas of Ukraine under Russian control, organizations such as Human Rights Watch report that Russian forces have targeted unaccompanied minors whose parents have been detained, fled, or killed, forcibly removing them from their communities. Investigators have also documented Russian authorities entering schools and orphanages to take children and deport them.
Rashevska claims that some of these abducted Ukrainian children are not only being adopted by Russian families but are also being sent to re-education camps designed to instill loyalty to Russia, erase Ukrainian identity, and are exposed to militaristic messaging. Human Rights Watch reports that children are taught to view Ukraine as an illegitimate state and Russia as their true homeland instead.
Research by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab describes Ukrainian teenagers being sent to military style training camps where they are taught to dig trenches and forced to participate in combat training exercises.
Rashevska states there have been at least two instances of Russia deporting Ukrainian children to re-education camps in North Korea as a part of a “cultural exchange program” that Russian kids are also sent to, to promote nationalistic narratives.
“Russians don’t need Ukraine to be depopulated, they need collaborators in occupied territories”, Rashevska said.
The goal of military exercises is to prepare them for future military service aimed at advancing Russia’s objectives and the purpose of ideological indoctrination is to make them more open to Russian annexation of Ukraine.
“Putin wants to do referendums so he wants people in those territories to vote to join Russia,” Rashevska said.
US peace plan leaves children behind
Human Rights Watch has stated that Russia’s forcible transfer of Ukrainian children is a war crime. International law precludes an occupying power from deporting or transferring civilians from the occupied territory to its own or others.
Rashevska argues that the US-proposed peace plan would not only fail to address these violations and the erasure of Ukrainian children’s identities but would instead exacerbate the problem.
While President Trump’s peace deal calls for a humanitarian committee to be established to resolve issues of family reunification and the return of children, several Ukrainian lawmakers and civil society leaders argue the proposal lacks enforcement measures that would ensure children are repatriated. In addition, these critics say the practice of “russifying” Ukrainian children will continue because Russia’s rule over them will be only be further entrenched in the occupied territories.
“This peace agreement doesn’t prevent the commission of these crimes in the future because territories remain occupied,” Rashevska said.
The existing regime will stay in place and “Russian legislation will be implemented and it means Russia will recognize Ukrainian children living under occupation as Russian children. More children would be transferred to Russian foster families and re-education camps,” Rashevska said.
Rashevska recommends that a provision be added to the peace deal framework that specifically aims to address abductions of Ukrainian children and attempts to erase their identities in occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Do not stop efforts to fight for Ukrainian children after a ceasefire,” Rashevska said.
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