Ukraine’s top official responsible for returning children kidnapped by Russia is urging greater U.S. assistance in delivering justice for more than a million families across his country.

One of the darkest aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine is its campaign of abducting Ukrainian children, the subject of an international war crime indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of his top deputies.

Maksym Maksymov, head of Bring Kids Back UA, was in Washington D.C. this week warning of Russia’s evolving strategy to “reprogram” Ukrainian children into Russian patriots and soldiers.

“There’s a lot of sense of urgency, and we do understand that time is not on our side,” he told The Hill in an interview earlier this week, ahead of meetings with Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

The Ukrainian government has identified at least 20,000 Ukrainian children in Russian custody and painstakingly returned 2,200 since February 2022, the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Ukraine is returning about 50 children per month through a mix of clandestine operations and government-to-government handovers.

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