By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Pope Francis expressed concern Wednesday that “war is a human defeat” after new evidence emerged that the Russia-Ukraine war impacted those whose lives have just begun. Investigators say Ukrainian children were stripped of their Ukrainian identity and placed with Russian families.
As fighting intensifies ahead of possible peace negotiations, a U.S. State Department-backed investigation has identified 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia in the early months of the war in Ukraine.
Researchers say it was part of a systematic, Kremlin-funded program to “Russify” them. Yale’s School of Public Health, which conducted the research, said Russian presidential aircraft and funds were used in a program that took children from occupied Ukrainian territories.
They were allegedly stripped of their Ukrainian identity and placed with Russian families.
In March 2023, the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his child rights’ commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the alleged war crime of deportation of Ukrainian children.
However, in a previous interview, Lvova-Balova denied wrongdoing. “They thanked our soldiers for saving, helping, and not abandoning them. For getting them out of the airstrikes,” she claimed.
“Since when do words of gratitude constitute propaganda? Those are ordinary, sincere human emotions. No one has been forced to take [Russian citizenship, as Ukraine often claims,” Lvova-Balova wondered in an interview with the Vice news outlet.
Yet her words have done little to convince those searching for their children of Ukraine, which insisted on Tuesday that membership of the NATO military alliance NATO was the only “real guarantee” for its security.
NATO UMBRELLA
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has even suggested putting territories he controls under the NATO umbrella while a diplomatic solution could be found for Russian-occupied regions.
However, foreign ministers from the alliance sidestepped Kyiv’s push for an invitation at their meeting ahead of Donald J. Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency.
Yet, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said they would continue providing Kyiv with military aid as, in his words, peace talks have to be done from a position of strength. “i would say more military aid and less discussions on what a peace process could look like,” he argued.
“You and I will – are smart enough to think of many ways how to deal with that, but we have to bring Ukraine to that position that it can start, and it can only start when they are in a position of strength,” Rutte stressed.
There is concern among critics that this approach will mean more bloodshed in a war that has already killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people. “Pray for peace,” Pope Francis said.
Yet, as the near three-year-long war continues, many Ukrainian children will soon face another Christmas without their biological parents.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a sweeping series of airstrikes across southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley on Monday, targeting what it described as Hezbollah sites used for rocket launches and the production and storage of strategic weapons. The attacks marked one of the most extensive Israeli operations in Lebanon in months, killing at least three Hezbollah operatives in the past 24 hours, according to the military.
Residents on Luzon Island, the largest and most populated island of the Philippines, assessed the damage early Monday after a sleepless night when Super Typhoon Fung-wong, locally known as Uwan, killed at least two people and injured several others.
More than 50 prominent Christian leaders are calling on President Trump to directly confront Syria’s new president about the ongoing persecution of religious minorities when the two leaders meet Monday at the White House, marking a historic first for U.S.-Syria relations.
In a decisive break from Democratic obstruction that has paralyzed the federal government for over a month, the U.S. Senate on Sunday night voted 60-40 to advance legislation ending the record-breaking 40-day government shutdown, marking a significant victory for Republican fiscal discipline and President Donald Trump’s healthcare reform agenda.
A group of Hamas fighters trapped inside tunnels on the Israeli-controlled side of the Rafah ceasefire line have vowed not to surrender to Israeli forces, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced Sunday, in a move that could jeopardize the fragile month-old ceasefire in Gaza.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an extraordinary 2,700-year-old pottery fragment inscribed with Assyrian cuneiform near the Temple Mount — the first written evidence of direct contact between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah ever discovered in the city. The find, announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), offers striking confirmation of the biblical narrative of King Hezekiah’s resistance to Assyrian domination recorded in II Kings 18.
Iranian officials are warning of imminent water rationing—and even the potential evacuation of Tehran—as the nation faces its worst drought in nearly a century.