The ERLC joined faith leaders in a letter to President Trump and Secretary Rubio expressing gratitude for the recent prioritization of returning missing Ukrainian children to their homes. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Putin has ordered the forced deportation of 20,000 Ukrainian children from their homes to Russia or Russian-controlled territories. The letter describes the horrific conditions taking place:
“These children, ranging in age from four months to 17 years old, have been subjected to political re-education, military training, and forced assimilation into Russian society. Many have been placed in Russian families, illegally adopted, and had their birth certificates altered to erase their Ukrainian identities. The Russian government has denied Ukrainian children access to their families, subjected them to physical abuse, and failed to provide them with adequate food and care.The forced deportation of nearly twenty thousand Ukrainian children is not just a tragedy — it is a grave moral and legal atrocity. This is not an unfortunate consequence of war—it is a deliberate and systematic act of injustice.
In a recent phone call with President Zelensky on March 19, President Trump asked about Ukraine’s missing children, promising to work closely with both parties to ensure they were returned home. The letter states:
“We urge you, as leaders of the free world, to ensure that Ukraine’s children are returned home without precondition in advance of peace talks. Ukraine’s children must not be used as bargaining chips in geopolitical negotiations. Their safety, dignity, and right to be reunited with their families must be non-negotiable.”
Why the return of these missing Ukrainian children matters for Christians
Christians care about human suffering, namely when our brothers and sisters are being subjected to the kind of suffering we’re seeing in Ukraine. While Ukraine is thousands of miles from American soil, Christians in America ought not to remain aloof from its war with Russia. Our brothers, sisters, friends, and fellow heirs with Christ are there, under the thumb of an overreaching dictator seeking to do them harm.
As Southern Baptists, we should wrench at what’s happening in Eastern Europe. Articles XVI (Peace and War) and XVII (Religious Liberty) of the Baptist Faith and Message, two beliefs that are fundamental Southern Baptist convictions, are being actively and intentionally threatened in Ukraine. And our brothers and sisters are being subjected to extreme suffering because of their allegiance to Christ and their identification with the Baptist faith.
As Christians in America, let us use our freedoms to pray and advocate Ukrainian families to be reunited with their children. In this letter we affirm:
“As faith leaders, we believe that every child is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Scripture calls us to defend the “quartet of the vulnerable” (Zechariah 7:10): the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Christ himself commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39) and seek justice for the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17).”
