Your Mum Stays, and You Will Come With Us

This report was prepared by the Research Laboratory of The Reckoning Project (TRP). It documents and analyzes the practice of the forcible separation of Ukrainian children from their parents or guardians during Russian "filtration" measures — a procedure of coercive screening of civilians conducted by Russian security forces in occupied territories to identify "disloyal" citizens. These procedures are often accompanied by unlawful detention, torture, and forced displacement. The main objective of this study is to draw attention to the magnitude of psychological harm inflicted on children, as well as to identify the Russian Federation's systematic instrumentalization of Ukrainian children as "resources." The study is based on 18 testimonies collected by TRP describing incidents that occurred between February and October 2022 in areas of active hostilities and/or in occupied territories. The documented separations are typically linked to the filtration process, carried out by the Russian military, law enforcement, and the broader administrative structures in occupied territories. The analysis reveals a common pattern: occupying authorities did not attempt to locate the children's relatives in Ukrainian-controlled territory. Instead, they immediately sought to alienate children from their state to "integrate" them into Russian society — by issuing Russian passports, preparing them for adoption, or placing them in social care institutions. The Research Laboratory also collected evidence of a multi-layered traumatic experience for children forcibly separated in the context of the ongoing hostilities. These events may have caused significant and long-term psychological harm, manifested in adjustment disorders and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among the children sampled.