Humanitarian Crisis: Rising Crimes Against Ukrainian Children in a Global Context
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has consistently recorded an increase in the number of violations of children's rights in armed conflict zones around the world, with a particular focus on the situation in Ukraine. Guterres' annual report, presented at a meeting of the UN Security Council by the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba, once again emphasizes the critical state of affairs with children's rights in the context of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. According to the document, tensions in the region directly affect the legal status of minors. In particular, in the period 2024–2025, the number of gross violations of children's rights in Ukraine more than doubled - by 105%. This phenomenon should be analyzed in the context of large-scale crimes and systemic violations by the Russian armed forces, accompanied by murders, maiming, and mass attacks on educational and health facilities. The UN chief does not hide his deep concern about this trend. In a special section of the report, he emphasizes that as of the current period, 94 children were killed and 577 injured in the period 2024–2025, and all responsibility for these crimes, according to him, lies with the Russian armed forces and their supporting groups. The report also notes 559 attacks on residential and educational facilities, as well as 303 cases of damage to hospitals - facts that grossly violate international law and the rights of children to a safe space. In addition, the document pays special attention to the difficult situation with the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. UN officials have repeatedly stressed that many of them remain missing eight months after the deportations began, without being returned to their families or guardians. Guterres openly calls on the Russian side to cooperate with the international community to return the children and reunite them with their families, stressing that ignoring these demands only deepens the humanitarian crisis. Given the systematic nature of the violations and the scale of the crimes, the UN Secretary-General has decided to re-include the Russian Armed Forces in the so-called “list of shame” - a list of state structures and parties responsible for gross and massive violations of children’s rights during armed conflicts. This decision is due to clear evidence and testimony from international institutions about the systematic nature of crimes against Ukrainian children, which is of deep concern to the world community. In general, the situation with children’s rights in Ukraine remains one of the most critical in the modern international policy of humanitarian crises. Evidence from international organizations demonstrates that without active intervention by the international community and condemnation of responsible parties, the humanitarian situation risks worsening, jeopardizing the future of an entire generation of Ukrainian children.