(MENAFN) First Lady Melania Trump revealed that she has been communicating directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin for several months as part of a private diplomatic effort to reunite Ukrainian children displaced by the ongoing conflict with their families.

Since the Ukraine crisis escalated in 2022, Russia has evacuated children from combat zones, relocating them until they can be reunited with relatives. Ukrainian authorities have accused Moscow of “kidnapping” some of these children.

Speaking on Friday, Trump said the initiative began after she sent a letter to Putin last August. “He responded in writing, signaling a willingness to engage with me directly,” she stated. The two have maintained “an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children” since then.

The first lady reported that multiple back-channel meetings and calls have taken place over the past three months “all in good faith,” resulting in the reunification of eight Ukrainian children with their families in the past 24 hours. She explained that three children were separated due to frontline fighting and taken to Russia, while five others were separated across borders, including “one young girl who has now been reunited from Ukraine to Russia.”

Trump noted that her team worked directly with Putin’s aides to facilitate these reunifications and that Russia provided documentation—including biographies, photos, and reports on the children’s care—which the US government verified as accurate.

Her mission, she said, is “to optimize a transparent free flow exchange of health-related information” and “facilitate the regular communication of children with their families until each individual returns home.” She added that the effort is ongoing, with additional reunifications planned in the near future.

Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, publicly thanked Melania Trump for her efforts. “I want to say words of gratitude to the First Lady of the United States for her attention and care towards families of children affected by the military conflict,” Lvova-Belova said in a video message Friday.

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