00:00As the meeting between President Trump and Putin approaches on Friday, more and more people are
00:05trying to define what a good deal between Ukraine and Russia should look like, what Ukraine should
00:11give to Russia and Russia return to Ukraine. And as an advocate who is working on the return of
00:16abducted children of Ukraine, I know one condition and one thing that should not be compromised on
00:22and it's abducted Ukrainian children. Ukrainian government has received over 19,000 reports of
00:28abduction of children, but we know that there are so many more than that. And it has done multiple
00:34attempts to negotiate with Russia on the return of children. The most recent attempts were during
00:41the meeting in Istanbul when Ukraine submitted a list of 339 names to Russia as a test to see if
00:48Russia is willing to negotiate the return of children in goodwill. If Russia would return those 300 kids,
00:54more would follow. But Russia returned only six after two months. And even those children were largely
01:03negotiated and mediated by Qatar for over a year. And if this return signifies anything, it speaks more
01:11to the efforts of international partners who work on return of Ukrainian children rather than on Russia's
01:17goodwill. Returning six children out of 339 asked, 19,546 missing and hundreds more estimated abducted
01:28children is not really a piece. It's mockery of negotiations. Putin is actively making fun and mocks
01:38Trump's attempts to bring peace to Ukraine. This is the only issue that Ukraine doesn't really have
01:45leverage on because simply Ukraine does not have Russian children to offer in return. So with
01:52international organization failing to hold Russia accountable and for the returning Ukrainian abducted
01:58children, it is really up to international partners to broadcast and put pressure on Putin to return
02:06abducted Ukrainian children. And I believe nobody has more influence or leverage over Putin right now
02:13than President Trump. President Trump himself mentioned back in February that he believes he could return
02:19abducted Ukrainian children. This would be an unprecedented move in the history of humanitarian
02:25issues that I would believe would bring him the Nobel Peace Prize because what could be more morally
02:32right than to return abducted children to their families and their native land. Russia will claim that it has
02:40no idea where the children are and have never stolen anyone's children and tried to muddy the waters as
02:46much as they can as they've been doing before. But we should remember that Russia at the same time
02:51posts the portfolios of abducted children for adoption on its government websites. The organization
02:58Save Ukraine has broke the news that there is this online catalog almost of Ukrainian children that Russia
03:05offers for adoption that describes children like its products in marketplace, posts their full unblurred
03:13pictures, describes their nature and how they behave, how obedient they are, their submitsiveness to power.
03:19It literally enables child traffickers to search for perfect children victims. And this has to stop.
03:28And President Trump has this opportunity to center a conversation with Putin, not only about lands, but
03:35actually about people who live in those lands and about children that were stolen by Russia. We must,
03:41as Americans, remind the world that children are non-negotiable, children are not bargaining chips,
03:48and children are not a concession that KB meant made to aggressor that America will stand by innocent children everywhere.
Comments