ECHR Ruling In Case Of 10 Ukrainian Children Abducted By Russia May Come In 2027

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Ukraine, as a third party, is asking the Court to recognize that the violation of the children's rights is ongoing, to oblige Russia to disclose information about the children's whereabouts, and to ensure their return.

Margaryta Sokorenko, Ukraine's Commissioner for the European Court of Human Rights, spoke about this in a comment to a Ukrinform correspondent following the conclusion of the public hearings in Strasbourg.

“We do not know exactly when the Court will announce its decision, but I am optimistic that it will happen next year. After today's hearing, the Court retired to the deliberation chamber, where it will decide on the complaints filed. In other words, there will be no further hearings,” Sokorenko said.

She explained that this is an individual case; the application was filed by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten children, while the State of Ukraine is participating in the proceedings as a third party and supports the applicants' position.

“We support the claim that the Russian Federation has violated the rights of Ukrainian children in Crimea. Moreover, we ask the Court to consider these violations as ongoing-they began at the time of the occupation of Crimea in 2014; the children have not been returned to Ukraine since then, and Russia has not provided any information about their whereabouts or their well-being,” the Commissioner emphasized.

According to her, although the European Convention on Human Rights ceased to apply to Russia on September 16, 2022, Ukraine is asking the Court to assess the current consequences for the children as part of violations that began while the Convention was in force and have not yet ceased.

Sokorenko also noted that this is the first of the individual cases against Russia related to Ukraine in which the ECHR has held open oral hearings regarding human rights violations in occupied Crimea.

“After the European Court issued its judgment on the merits in inter-state cases, it actively moved on to considering individual applications. The year 2026, in particular, saw increased activity in the consideration of individual claims regarding human rights violations in the occupied territories. This case is one of those important cases,” she clarified.

At the same time, the systematic nature of violations of Ukrainian children's rights has already been confirmed in the inter-state case“Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia.” In that case, the ECHR found a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in connection with the removal of children from their legal guardians, their transfer to Russia, the alteration of their identities, ideological indoctrination, and attempts to sever their ties with Ukraine.

“These individual applications concern specific examples of the widespread systemic practice that Ukraine has raised in inter-state cases and regarding which it has already proven the existence of violations,” the Commissioner emphasized.

Ukraine also asks the ECHR to apply the approach already established in the inter-state case and to determine, in accordance with Article 46 of the Convention, the specific measures that Russia must take.

“We do not know where these children are or what is happening to them. Therefore, we demand that Russia provide information on their status and whereabouts and that they be returned to Ukraine-their country of origin,” Sokorenko stated.

Read also: Five more children returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory from temporarily occupied Kherson region

According to her, Russia must provide full information about the children and cooperate with Ukraine, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and relevant international mechanisms to ensure their return.

As previously reported, the case concerns ten children who, in 2014, were under the care of the Ukrainian state and lived in children's institutions in Crimea. At the time of the peninsula's occupation, they were between one and five years old.

As reported by Ukrinform, on Tuesday, September 22, public hearings began at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the case of ten Ukrainian children who were forced to accept Russian citizenship after the occupation of Crimea and who may have been put up for adoption in Russia.

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