Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 25th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, the committee is meeting to study Canada's response to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

I would like to welcome our witnesses for the first hour.

From Save Ukraine, we have Mykola Kuleba, chief executive officer, joining us by video conference.

From the Yale School of Public Health humanitarian research lab, we have Caitlin Howarth, director of conflict analytics, appearing in person.

Up to five minutes will be given for opening remarks, after which we will proceed to rounds of questions from members of the committee.

I now invite you to make an opening statement. Welcome.

[Mykola Kuleba, Chief Executive Officer, Save Ukraine]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee.

My name is Mykola Kuleba. I want to express my gratitude to the Canadian government for taking this issue seriously and for the support you have already provided us, including your visit to our Save Ukraine centre in Kyiv, Mr. Chairman, which gave many people a feeling of courage and solidarity.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about one of the greatest child trafficking crimes in modern history: Russia's systematic abduction, indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children.

Before I begin, allow me to share a brief personal reflection. I've been in child protection for 26 years, but nothing could prepare any of us for a state-run machine designed to erase a generation. That is why Save Ukraine is bringing Ukraine's children—stolen children—home and helping them heal.

As you know, Save Ukraine is the largest organization rescuing Ukrainian children from Russia and the occupation. To date, more than 1,000 children have been brought home after being separated from their families, trafficked and sent to military camps, with the threat of losing their identity. Everything that I want to describe in a moment was directly documented from children as they escaped from the occupied territories and after they received trauma counselling.

Russia has made a new Iron Curtain descend on the world, trapping more than a million Ukrainian children behind it. Inside this system, Moscow pursues two strategic goals.

The first is to militarize Ukrainian children, especially boys, and to train them in military camps to hate the west and fight on the Russian side against it and NATO countries. According to the children, occupied schools have been transformed into military training camps where combat is taught every single day. One boy recently described how Russian soldiers entered the classroom to conduct psychological tests: How do you feel about killing? Are you ready? Do you enjoy hitting? When one boy refused to answer, he was told that they would take him first and that he would serve on a submarine. This is unfair. Children should be studying and playing, not imagining what it means to take someone's life.

Across Russia, Belarus and the occupied regions, boys as young as eight are sent to so-called patriotic camps and cadet academies. There they assemble rifles, throw grenades, manage drones, dig trenches, practise storming buildings and march under the Russian flag. They are taught that NATO is the enemy and that war with its member states has to happen. One boy told us after his rescue that they were told their job was to prepare to fight against Ukraine first and then the west.

As for the second strategy, now I will talk about the girls. Russia's clear intent is to push Ukrainian girls into becoming mothers of soldiers. It's a demographic weapon meant to replace Russia's battlefield losses and to serve its long-term imperial strategy. Look at the materials in front of you: Let us pause for a moment so that you can absorb what is being told to children.

Girls and women in the occupied territories are forced to give birth as early as possible so that their children can be absorbed into the Russian system. It's designed to control girls' bodies and turn motherhood into a tool of war. Mothers are forced to take Russian citizenship. Refusing often brings inhumane and illegal consequences.

One 19-year-old mother told us that during labour, she was denied a C-section until she agreed to take Russian citizenship. After giving birth, she was forced to register her baby with a Russian birth certificate, under the threat that she would not be allowed to leave the hospital with her newborn. The aim was to trap them both inside Russia illegally and to block evacuation to any third country.

Through the documented stories of the children we rescued, we clearly see that this is not an isolated incident. This is a deliberate policy. The scale of this crime is staggering.

More than 19,000 children are officially confirmed as abducted. U.S. intelligence estimates the real number may in fact exceed 260,000. Over one million Ukrainian children remain trapped under Russian control with no legal path home. This is the largest state-run child trafficking and re-education program in Europe since the Second World War. It expands every month.

Today, no official international mechanism exists that is capable of rescuing these children. The underground railroad, which Canada provided safety for, is now operated by Save Ukraine and, unfortunately, remains the only way to extract kids. Our rescue missions have brought back over 1,000 children out of the approximately 1,800 who have found their way home so far.

These boys and girls were held in camps, Russian orphanages and foster families deep inside Russia or trapped behind occupation lines. Save Ukraine not only rescues them but provides comprehensive medical care, trauma-informed rehabilitation, education and reintegration into their families or foster communities.

Canada is the global leader on this issue, among 44 countries united in the Bring Kids Back initiative. Canada helped us track over 4,000 devices belonging to forcibly displaced children, compile 800 full profiles and directly facilitate pathways to rescue 200 of them.

I want to be absolutely clear. This is not only a Ukrainian issue. This is a global security issue.

Today, Russia spends more than $1.5 billion on propaganda worldwide. According to the Russian State Duma's approved budget, $92 million is allocated for patriotic upbringing. Nearly $13 million goes to Yunarmiya, the largest military youth organization preparing children for the Russian army, and $212 million goes to its Soviet pioneers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you.

Mr. Kuleba, I have to ask you to please conclude because we're over the time for the opening statement.

[Mykola Kuleba]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much to Mykola Kuleba, chief executive officer of Save Ukraine.

I was actually in Ukraine last year in my previous role. I saw first-hand the work of Save Ukraine and your team and some of the children you had rescued. Thank you for that.

I now invite Caitlin Howarth to make her opening statement.

Welcome.

[Caitlin Howarth, Director of Conflict Analytics, Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab]

Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee and, of course, my esteemed colleague from Ukraine, thank you so much for the opportunity to appear today.

My name is Caitlin Howarth, and I'm the director of conflict analytics at the Yale humanitarian research lab, a dedicated team that has become a pioneer in using open-source investigations and satellite imagery to monitor and document war crimes and grave violations of human rights.

We are proud to have supported domestic and international accountability efforts in both Ukraine and Sudan. Findings from our investigations are preserved to evidentiary standards and are produced with rigorous data-responsibility protocols.

I'm here to attest that, over the last three years, the Yale HRL has uncovered a large-scale, state-organized program of forced transfer, coerced adoption, militarization and ideological re-education of Ukraine's children. These programs are funded, facilitated and publicly endorsed by the Russian government, including at the highest level by President Vladimir Putin.

In our investigation published in December 2024, we identified 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia and illegally listed for adoption on Russian government websites, where they were presented as though they were Russian orphans. At least 67 of those children have been naturalized as Russian citizens. At least 208 of them have been placed for adoption or guardianship.

The children were taken to at least 21 regions in Russia. In five of them, they were listed on adoption databases. We further assess—which I can tell you for the first time here—that Ukraine's children have been listed for adoption in at least 10 other regions in Russia that were not in our previous reporting. Unfortunately, the interruptions to our funding have constrained our ability to follow these critical leads.

In our investigation published in September 2025, we documented 210 facilities involved in the re-education and militarization of Ukraine's children. These facilities span 56 regions of Russia and occupied Ukraine, along with 13 facilities in Belarus. They include cadet schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious institutions, universities, hotels, family centres, and camps or sanatoria. Half of these facilities are directly run by the Russian government, and children are subjected to pro-Russia re-education in 61.9% of these facilities. Military training took place in at least 39 of them, and we believe that number is quite low.

Russia's alleged plans will not end with the children already within its grasp. Satellite imagery indicates that the continued construction of new facilities designed to receive additional groups of Ukraine's children is ongoing. If Russia is not stopped, more Ukrainian children are at risk of being taken and forced into this pipeline of indoctrination all the way to the front line in Russia's war to eradicate Ukraine's identity and sovereignty.

This program is not ad hoc. These actions are not incidental. What the Yale HRL finds is a systematic program of identity erasure and illegal transfer, acts that fall squarely within the definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ukraine's efforts to rescue its children have been extraordinary. Ukraine has managed to bring back over 1,600 children to their families through complex diplomatic, intelligence, judicial and humanitarian operations. Through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, which is a consortium of Ukrainian government and civil society partners, including Save Ukraine, the Yale humanitarian research lab and the continued support of many members in the room here today, it is indisputable that there can be no sustainable peace before all Ukraine's children are brought home.

Essential to this effort are the data needed for negotiations—the incontrovertible evidence of who these children are, where they have been taken from and who is responsible for their abduction. Russia is rapidly restricting access to this information. It's removing adoption notices and erasing digital traces that are critical for identifying where these children are. Ukraine needs investigative partners who can expertly navigate the shrinking information space without exposing sources or compromising sensitive, ongoing operations. Funds for these initiatives that support child identification and return efforts are essential.

The HRL has been able to provide the most comprehensive and verifiable child profiles to Ukrainian authorities, including names, birthdates, places of origin, where they were taken from and who is responsible. This is critical during negotiations to return children, as Russia frequently obfuscates and attempts to construct a veneer of plausible deniability. Our work removes that option.

We are now undertaking a major study to identify the total number of Ukrainian children abducted since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, a figure that Russia has sought to deliberately manipulate and obscure. This work is essential for accountability, for sanctions enforcement and for peace negotiations in which the status of these children is the core condition.

Like many, we were hit by the global funding crisis for human rights and humanitarian organizations, and without support, we will cease these Ukraine operations within a matter of weeks. We fear what will happen when our lights go out, and we will no longer be able to provide the support, to the highest evidentiary standard, to the Government of Ukraine as one of its most effective and trusted non-governmental partners. We seek the support of our friends in Canada to call for our continued funding so that we can continue this essential mission.

Mr. Chair and honourable members, Russia is using Ukraine's children as part of its full-scale assault on Ukraine's territorial integrity, identity and freedom. These children are not just the future of Ukraine; they are at the forefront of Ukraine's path to victory and its enduring peace. There can be no just or sustainable peace in Ukraine until every child taken by Russia is identified, located and returned home.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to the members, who will ask questions of the witnesses, and we'll start with MP Kramp-Neuman.

You have six minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Thank you.

First of all, thank you, both of you, very much for your testimony today.

I have a number of questions for both of you, but perhaps I'll ask you, Mykola Kuleba, if you would like to continue your remarks. I think you were in the midst of a few statements right at the end. If you'd like to finish those, you're welcome to use this time—some of it.

[Mykola Kuleba]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

My call to you is to please not stop. I ask you for this.

This is Russia's imperial strategy. This is visible in every single one of the rescued kids. If the world does not stop this now, thousands of these boys will become soldiers trained to fight the west, and thousands of girls will be forced into early pregnancies to supply the next wave of troops.

I ask for your help to continue bringing these children home. Bringing them home is not only an act of mercy but also a fight against a long-term hybrid threat aimed at every NATO country and investment in global security.

Thank you so much for your leadership, your courage and your humanity.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Kuleba, I'd like to ask you a question.

How is the organization Save Ukraine adapting its strategies as frontline conditions continue to change?

[Mykola Kuleba]

We started our rescue missions when the full-scale invasion happened, but we had experience from the first invasion, when I founded Save Ukraine.

After the liberation of the territories of several regions, we found that many of these dozens of thousands of these kids—had been kidnapped. We found the mothers, a lot of them, and they testified that their kids were taken to camps and to academies. We tried to find them. Our first step was to search for the children, and we found them in many Russian facilities.

More than three years ago, we started our rescue missions from occupied territories and inside Russia. It was possible at that time to bring back five or up to 10 children. We started, but then Russia banned any rescue. Even if you're a mother of a kid and you go inside Russia and tell them at the border that you want to take your kid back home to Ukraine, you will be immediately deported and banned from coming to Russia for the next 20 years.

That's why, when we're searching for these kids, we are building communication. We have an investigation group inside Ukraine, and we have mediators who build in communication and trust, and they ensure that children who've been kidnapped can come back home safely.

We cannot tell them a lot, but we have their friends and their relatives who can connect and tell them, “No, it's not Nazis in Ukraine who will kill you. It's not NATO soldiers who will kill you. You can come back and live safely in Ukraine.” Through this, we can ensure that children come back, and through our underground railroad, we are rescuing them.

I cannot give you details because many things are confidential, but we have children from Russian foster families, Russian institutions, Russian military academies and even the Russian army.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Thank you for that.

Caitlin, if I could pass the torch to you. First of all, thank you for all of your work. I heard a presentation from one of your counterparts, I believe, when I was at the PACE assembly several months ago, at the end of the summer, and he also spoke at great length on the concern for continued funding.

More specifically, I'm going to share that last week, the ambassador mentioned that one of the more difficult elements of kidnapping is what he termed brainwashing and attempting the Russification of children. What does this mean practically for the abducted children? What challenges is that presenting to these children if and when they're returned home?

Second, how are we measuring how many are gone and when they're coming home? Is there some sort of registry for these children?

[Caitlin Howarth]

To answer your second question first, unfortunately, no, there is not currently a registry for these children—not one that is centralized, not one that all humanitarian partners are able to contribute to and draw from in a consistent way and, importantly, not one that international law enforcement is able to contribute to and draw from.

This is essential. We need a resource that our global law enforcement will be able to access, because when children are essentially able to escape this system and move on, they may not be moving on entirely within Russia, but they also may not necessarily go back to Ukraine. If they are ever brought, coercively or not, to another country, where they end up and what happens to them need to be accessible. Their identity needs to be accessible to them. Given the extent of Russia's measures to comprehensively erase their identities and the ability of adoptive families to completely change their names, to change the origin of their birth entirely, it's crucial that this information be established and that this registry be created.

To answer your first question on the level of indoctrination and how insidious that is, I want to acknowledge that this is an area where my colleague Mykola has done such outstanding work, as has the team of psychologists and social workers that he works with.

With regard to the damage that is done, particularly to the children at the younger ages who have been swept into the system—we're talking about 1.6 million Ukrainian children who are under Russian occupation—the impact, the level of the impression that can be made is very strong, particularly when an opportunity is created when the child is traumatized.

That is the first thing that Russia creates here. It creates the opportunity for a trauma bond with the perpetrator of the crime. It then works to expand that by filling the space with the propaganda, with the indoctrination, saying, “Now you have a new home, a new mother, and that mother is Mother Russia.” This is what is so dangerous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you.

Next, we have MP Anita Vandenbeld.

You have six minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, both of you, for such incredibly compelling testimony.

I note that we heard similar testimony in the subcommittee on international human rights. I believe, Mr. Kuleba, that you also testified at that committee. We heard from some of the children and their parents, and it was absolutely heartbreaking. You used the word “insidious”; I do not think there is a strong enough word for weaponizing children against their own families and heritage.

I'd like to start with Mr. Kuleba.

We also heard that this isn't completely new. This is something that started even in 2014 in the illegally occupied regions. Those children, who now, of course, are even older, are actually being forced or coerced into being in the Russian military, fighting their own people.

Is there a precedent whereby we can see what the progression is? If so, what can we do in terms of trying to prevent more of this from happening?

I'll start with Mr. Kuleba, and then I'll go to you, Ms. Howarth.

[Mykola Kuleba]

Thank you.

You're right. The number of children who are conscripted is growing.

I will just give you one example. Before my trip, I talked with a soldier. He told me there was a battle, and many Russian soldiers were killed. They collected their documents and bodies. One document was for a 15-year-old boy in Russian military uniform. They're using child soldiers.

With huge indoctrination and brainwashing, they instill hatred toward NATO. In Ukrainian prisons for Russian-captured soldiers, every sixth Russian soldier who is captured is now from occupied territories. Many of them are young adults. If you ask them, “Who are you fighting?”, they will answer, “NATO.” They are 100% sure they are fighting against NATO soldiers.

When we're questioning our kids who've been rescued, they're telling us that it's not a school in occupied territories; it's a military school. They say, “Every day, Russian soldiers come in and train us.” Can you imagine that? That's hundreds of thousands of children, and it's not only in occupied territories; in Russia, you can read Russian history books, and you will find that Canada, the west and the United States are the enemy.

It's as it was in the Soviet Union. I grew up in the Soviet Union. I read these books in the Soviet Union, but it's a new era. It's a huge indoctrination of children, and they are preparing these kids for the next stage of war with the west. I can imagine that there are millions of Russian children and Ukrainians, after reindoctrination, who manage drones, who produce drones, who handle weapons.

One 15-year-old girl, an orphan who had been forcibly sent to a Russian military camp, showed me how to make a booby trap. Kids are creating booby traps, handling weapons and managing drones. Soon they will grow up, and they could flow to western countries, having this hatred towards the west, managing drones and new technologies. Believe me, it will happen.

That's why we should act now to stop Russia, by deprogramming these kids. What we're doing first in our rehabilitation centre is deprogramming them, because many of them do not know that Ukraine exists. That's because they learned, in this new Russian school, that Ukraine does not exist anymore. I can tell you tons of stories about this.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

It's every parent's and every person's worst nightmare.

I would also like to give it to Ms. Howarth to answer.

[Caitlin Howarth]

To me this is a twofold challenge. In addition to monitoring everything that's going on with the children, we are also looking at other levels of atrocities that are going on in the war.

The level of criminality is profound. Not only are children being taken hostage, indoctrinated, taught to fight against Ukraine and taught to fear at a superhuman level, but they are also being taught to inform on their own families, to give up information on neighbours, to tell Russian occupation authorities if a friend of theirs is joining a Ukrainian school at night online, which can have dramatic and life-altering consequences, because that child will be taken from their parents, and their parents may not necessarily be seen again if they're thrown in jail or face other consequences.

As for the cruelty here, “insidious” really isn't a good enough word for it, but this is also why we have the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions. The line stops at our children. They are not to be weaponized in war. That's why we are calling for the global community to say, “This is too much. We have to pull back.”

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Do I have time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

We are over the time. Thank you.

We will next go to MP Ziad Aboultaif. You have five minutes.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's Alexis. I'm sorry about that.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I want to thank the witnesses for being here. We've met before, so it's good to see you again.

Mr. Kuleba, what are the most important barriers in terms of finding and returning Ukrainian children who have been deported to Russia?

[Mykola Kuleba]

We have a lot of barriers because, first of all, a Ukrainian relative of any kid will not be able to go to Russia. It's very hard. You cannot tell them that you want to take your kid back to the Ukrainian side. Even if you're going from the occupied territories, you have dozens of checkpoints, and Russian special services and Russian soldiers will always interrogate you.

We had one grandmother who tried to reach her granddaughter. After 14 hours of interrogation, she died the next day, and the child disappeared. We couldn't find that 13-year-old girl for two years.

Many children, after coming to the Russian system, disappear. It's very important for us to rescue these kids soon after we know something about them. This is because we have many kids who've been rescued from forcible conscription. We have a lot of kids who received draft notices for the Russian army at 16 or 17 years old, and we have kids who've been taken to Russian military camps or Russian military academies. We have kids whose parents were arrested, killed or disappeared. Not only do these kids have huge trauma, but these kids have also been entrapped in Russia, and they have no hope. That's why it's so important to find them.

You can find, in new Russian legislation, that everybody must be registered in the Russian system, not only to receive Russian citizenship but also to use the official Russian Internet. Through the official Internet, Russian special services control all your movements. They control all your photos and every call in your phone. That's why we are using technical tools, and we educate the ones who stay there on how to avoid this, how to safely communicate.

I can tell you many stories of how we're doing this, but maybe those would be better told privately.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

What type of international support, particularly from Canada, could help you overcome these significant barriers or, at least, speed up the process for returning these children?

[Mykola Kuleba]

As I mentioned before, we are so grateful for Canada's support because Canada, among 44 countries, was the first and only one that supported Save Ukraine's underground railroad to find and rescue—physically rescue—abducted children and children who've been militarized from Russia and occupied territories. We have this experience, and it has helped us to rescue 200 kids from that. More than 1,000 kids have been rescued by us, but it's a great opportunity.

In addition to Canada, we are working with the German government, which is helping us provide rehabilitation to these children; with the Dutch government, which provides us with support for rehabilitation and with day care for children with disabilities; and with the Belgian government, which provides support for a special program for children who experience sexual abuse, because out of those rescued kids, every age of girl has experienced sexual abuse. We really need more programs on the ground—trauma-healing programs—to bring them home and to restore their childhoods, to restore their lives, because it's trauma for all their lives.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Ms. Howarth, I believe that your lab has looked into over 210 institutions regarding the forced transfer of children. What is the most conclusive evidence regarding the involvement of Russian state actors in these crimes against humanity?