Over 1,000 people joined the March for the Children of Ukraine in London on Sunday 1 June, calling for justice for Ukrainian children living under Russian occupation and for the return of those abducted by Russia. The demonstration was organized by a coalition of trade unions, Ukrainian organisations and the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign.
Since the occupation of Ukrainian territory in 2014, Russia has been perpetrating child abduction on an unprecedented scale. Ukraine recorded 19,546 cases of child abduction, while more recent research estimates that at least 35,000 children have been forcibly taken. Russia is quite blatant about abducting Ukrainian children and ‘Russifying’ them. In January 2024 Putin signed a decree expediting Russian citizenship to foreigners and stateless people. It allows orphaned Ukrainian children to forcibly become Russian citizens. In March 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for alleged war crimes in Ukraine including for the deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. The Russification of children is similar to what happened to Aboriginal Australian and Torres Straight Island children, known as the stolen generations.
The demonstration went past Downing Street where a delegation of children from ‘Spirit of Ukraine’, delivered a letter for the Prime Minister which calls for access to the children, their safe return, implementing international humanitarian law and for effective sanctions on Russia.
Seize Russian Assets to fund Ukrainian reconstruction
While there is much sympathy in Britain including amongst Labour MPs, for the plight of the Ukrainian stolen children, effective sanctions against Russia have yet to be carried out. Russian assets should be seized and donated to Ukraine for reconstruction, and Ukraine’s debt should be cancelled.
Britain and other Western countries have provided military and other aid to Ukraine, albeit not in sufficient quantity, but they are still trading with Russia to the extent that they are helping Russia fund its war on Ukraine. According to a BBC report ‘Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.’ NATO states have purchased $335bn of fossil fuel from Russia while donating $236bn to Ukraine.
In Britain, Seapeak Maritime is a Glasgow-based shipping company, one of the largest independent owner-operators of liquefied gas vessels which transport Russian gas across the world. The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland is campaigning for the UK Government to close loop-holes that allow British-based companies to transport Russian LNG despite sanctions. USC Scotland have held protests outside Sea peak’s offices and are asking MPs to sign anearly-day motion. Three years on since the invasion of eastern Ukraine by Russian imperialism, solidarity is as important as ever with the people of Ukraine. They should not only get all the arms necessary to push back the occupation, but sanctions need to be effective to cripple Russia’s military.
Photo with kind permission of Steve Eason
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