Madonna has taken to Instagram to show her support for the children suffering amid the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, among other places, writing: “Wherever there is conflict, children suffer…… Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, Congo, Malawi … The list is endless. We may not agree on many things, but I pray that we all agree that our children need to be protected.”
The Queen of Pop praised the efforts of world leaders attending the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland over the weekend, who gathered to forge a plan to end the war in Ukraine and return the Ukrainian children who were torn from their families and deported to Russia.
Initiated by Kyiv, the Global Peace Summit sought to address a range of humanitarian issues facing Ukrainians, including how young children can be protected from abduction by Russian occupiers.
“I stand for peace for all children everywhere,” Madonna wrote. “All over the world. And I will never stop! I hope you will join me,” she said.
Roughly 20,000 children have been kidnapped to Russia or Russian-occupied territory since the war began. Kyiv has described the abductions as a war crime that violate international law and meet the U.N. treaty’s definition of genocide.
Campaigners from Ukraine care calling for international efforts to return the children. They believe the abductions are an attempt by Russia to rob Ukraine’s national identity and submit young people to deep psychological scars.
Moscow has defended itself by saying it is protecting vulnerable children from the war zone. Meanwhile, more than 70 camps have been identified where Ukrainian children have been forcibly sent to be “re-educated…in an entirely pro-Russian environment,” and where they are “exposed to a pro-Russian information campaign often amounting to targeted re-education,” according to reports from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The report claimed that “the Russian Federation does not take any steps to actively promote the return of Ukrainian children”, while creating “various obstacles for families seeking to get their children back”.
Mykola Kuleba, founder of Save Ukraine — the charity working to return the children, said that Russia is “stealing” Ukraine’s future.
“They base their strategy on deception, indoctrination of children, and genocide of the Ukrainian nation,” Kuleba said.
“Children are forbidden to speak Ukrainian or display any Ukrainian symbols. Children are severely punished if they resist singing the Russian anthem.”
According to Kuleba, Save Ukraine has so far returned 373 children to their homes, including 88 orphans. Many of those returned show signs of trauma, and have had their names and date of birth changed by Russian authorities.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova (Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights) for “the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that [Putin and Lvova-Belova] bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others,” the court’s statement read.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”
Six months later, Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York, saying that Ukrainian authorities already know the names of tens of thousands of children and “have evidence on hundreds of thousands of others kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported.”
“We are trying to get children back home but time goes by,” he said. “What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are broken… This is clearly a genocide.”
At the two-day Global Peace Summit in Switzerland last weekend, more than 80 nations called for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the foundation of any peace agreement to end Russia’s war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the joint communique as the “first steps towards peace” and said it remains “open for accession by everyone who respects the UN Charter”.
“First of all, [the term is] not signing but joining [the final communique],” Zelenskiy said. ”This is an important difference, because joining the communique means that the communique is open,” he said. “Even countries that are now thinking to join it have consultations ongoing in their respective countries.”
“I hope that we can achieve results as soon as possible,” he added. “We’ll prove to everyone in the world that the UN Charter can be restored to full effectiveness.”
The final statement said the UN Charter and the “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty…can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”
“We believe that reaching peace requires the involvement of and dialogue between all parties,” the document added.
US Vice President Kamala Harris told leaders at the summit that Russia’s aggression is more than just an attack “on the lives and the freedom of the people of Ukraine.”
“It is not only an attack on global food security and energy supplies, Russia’s aggression is also an attack on international rules and norms and the principles embodied in the U.N. Charter,” she said, adding that the US was committed to continuing “to impose costs on Russia and we will continue to work toward a just and lasting peace.”
“And let us all then commit to the imperative of returning innocent children kidnapped by Russia – returning them to their homes,” she said.
President of the European Union’s Executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said the conference was “rightly” called “Path to Peace” because peace won’t be achieved in a single step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war,” she said. “He is insisting on capitulation. He is insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory — even territory that today is not occupied by him. He is insisting on disarming Ukraine, leaving it vulnerable to future aggression. No country would ever accept these outrageous terms.”