Behind the funding announcement lies a wider effort to rebuild family ties and protect children whose identities and futures were targeted by occupation.
On August 24, First Lady of Lithuania Diana Nausėdienė presented the “Children Above All: Protecting Ukraine’s Future” project. Its goal is to help return Ukrainian children whom Russia has forcibly relocated or deported, and to support them and their families after their return.
As part of the initiative, Lithuania will provide €600,000 in grant funding for non-governmental organizations. The funds will be directed toward:
searching for and returning Ukrainian children;
documenting war crimes committed against them;
protecting children’s rights;
rehabilitation after their return to Ukraine.
During the project’s presentation at the Lithuanian Embassy in Kyiv, Diana Nausėdienė stressed that children must not be turned into instruments of war and occupation.
Children must not be used as instruments of war or occupation. Their identities must not be forcibly rewritten. Their family ties must not be treated as inconvenient. Their future must not belong to the occupying authorities. Lithuania will defend these principles steadfastly and without compromise.
– Diana Nausėdienė
What assistance the project will provide
Lithuania also plans to raise more than €4 million for programs related to protecting the rights of and supporting Ukrainian children. The projects will be implemented independently or in cooperation with the Ukrainian authorities.
Šarūnas Radvilavičius, head of the Ukrainian branch of the Central Project Management Agency of Lithuania, explained that the assistance would include temporary housing for families, as well as social and medical services. The reconstruction of a children’s hospital will be a separate area of focus.
On August 17, it became known that U.S. First Lady Melania Trump had helped reunite another Ukrainian child with her family, from whom she had been separated by Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House said that, overall, her efforts had helped reunite 34 children with their families.
How many Ukrainian children remain in Russia and the occupied territories
Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly emphasized that it is difficult to establish the exact number of forcibly relocated children because part of the country’s territory is under occupation. At the same time, official data indicate the following scale:
as of the end of March 2023, the removal of more than 19,500 children to Russia had been confirmed;
on February 17, 2026, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that 2,000 children had been returned to Ukraine;
as of early July 2026, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children were in Russia and the temporarily occupied territories;
according to the Justice Ministry’s registry, 2,368 children forcibly relocated to Russia since the beginning of the full-scale war had been returned to Ukraine;
more than 500 children have been returned since the beginning of 2026.
On April 5, 2023, 49 countries jointly condemned Russia for attempting to justify the abduction of Ukrainian children during a UN Security Council meeting. The United Kingdom blocked the broadcast of an address by Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on UN platforms and called for her to be held accountable in The Hague.
On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova. They are suspected of the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.
The Office of the Prosecutor General has stated that there is currently no single transparent mechanism that would enable the return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia. The new Lithuanian project is intended to strengthen international support for these children, facilitate their return, and provide assistance after they are reunited with their families.