I’ve helped rescue 235 Ukrainian children who were kidnapped by Russia, stolen from their families and country. Russia’s abduction, adoption, and indoctrination of Ukraine’s children is the most cynical element of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to erase the Ukrainian nation. 

My organization, Save Ukraine, has only rescued only a small fraction of those abducted. Ukrainian authorities report that more than 19,000 have been taken by Russia. Russian Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who was indicted along with Putin by the International Criminal Court for these crimes, brags that Russia has “saved” 744,000 Ukrainian children. 

What Putin is doing is genocide under international law, and the longer we do nothing, the fewer kids can be saved. 

This is the message I brought to Congress last week, when I testified before the U.S. Helsinki Commission, alongside three of the children who survived the Russian government’s program of child deportation. They shared their heartbreaking and enraging stories of resilience — Denys, who was shuttled between “summer camps” in occupied territory grew gravely ill as his diabetes went untreated; Ksenia, who was living with a foster family before the war, was separated from her brother; and Rostislav, who was separated from his mother and spent 15 days in solitary isolation after refusing to take Russian citizenship. Others beaten and tortured. 

I am a devout Evangelical Christian, another group singled out for torture by Putin’s soldiers in occupied Ukraine. Rescuing Ukraine’s children isn’t just about saving the Ukrainian nation, it’s a sacred mission to protect the most vulnerable from what can only be described as pure evil. 

Russia has given a variety of justifications for its actions. In Putin’s telling, Ukraine isn’t a real nation, just the property of Russia filled with confused cousins of the Russian people. To be Ukrainian, to speak a unique language and determine the fate of our own sovereign country, is an affront to this imperialist mindset. Since being Ukrainian contradicts Putin’s version of reality, Russia’s solution is simple: destroy Ukrainians. 

Another simpler explanation is that, faced with a bleak demographic decline and hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing the country, Putin wants to kidnap as many Ukrainians as possible in order to fuel the Kremlin’s workforce. There are other practical reasons. Putin can use Ukraine’s kidnapped children in future wars or as a bargaining chip to get people in the occupied territories to cooperate. 

Whatever the reason, the reality is clear: What Russia is doing is genocide — an effort to destroy the Ukrainian nation and people — plain and simple. 

We need help from Americans of good will. There is legislation in Congress condemning Russia’s abductions of Ukrainian children and declares Russia’s war on Ukraine to be a genocide, and I encourage Americans to learn about this legislation and urge their representatives to support it. The U.S. government can also sanction Russian officials for taking part in the abduction program — Putin and Lvova-Belova may have been indicted by the ICC, but it takes far more than two people to kidnap tens of thousands of children. Ukrainian NGOs have been successful in rescuing Ukrainian children from Russia, and they need support from the U.S. and NATO countries to get as many to safety as possible. 

Above all, we need the world to understand the scale of Russia’s crimes. We cannot wait until the war ends — which could take years — to free Ukrainian children. Each day, more children are potentially lost in the Russian system. We need to act now.

Mykola Kuleba is founder of Save Ukraine, an NGO in Kyiv, Ukraine. From 2014-2021, he was the Presidential Ombudsman for Children.