Overview
- Europol said an international team identified 45 missing Ukrainian children during a two-day search in The Hague that brought together investigators from 18 countries and the International Criminal Court.
- Investigators scanned public posts and other online sources and used facial-recognition matches based on photos provided by parents to flag likely victims.
- Europol said the findings could point to current locations after teams also mapped transport routes and units believed to have moved the children.
- This was the third coordinated digital sweep focused on children taken from occupied Ukrainian areas to Russia or Belarus, with more than 19,500 cases estimated since 2022.
- Some children were described as adopted inside Russia or held in re-education camps or psychiatric hospitals, facts that feed ongoing ICC arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova.