Melania Trump, the wife of United States President Donald Trump, has revealed that she was involved in negotiations with the Russian government to return eight children displaced during its invasion of Ukraine.

In a short, six-minute speech from the White House on Friday, the US first lady explained she has developed an “open channel of communication” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they have been discussing the return of the children.

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“My representative has been working directly with President Putin’s team to ensure the safe reunification of children with their families between Russia and Ukraine,” she said. “In fact, eight children have been rejoined with their families during the past 24 hours.”

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the country has engaged in the forcible deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Some end up in re-education or military training facilities. Others are adopted into Russian families. Very few have returned home to their families in Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainian government, a total of 19,546 children have been deported to Russia. Only 1,605 have come back.

The mass abduction has resulted in criminal charges against Putin at the International Criminal Court. In March 2023, the court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, on the grounds that the “unlawful deportation” of children would constitute a war crime, as well as a violation of the Rome Statute.

While Russia is not party to the Rome Statute — the court’s founding document — Ukraine is.

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A Kremlin spokesperson has called the arrest warrant “outrageous and unacceptable” and emphasised it does not recognise the authority of the court. Russia has also repeatedly denied abducting Ukrainian children.

Praise for ‘good faith’ meetings

In Friday’s remarks, Melania Trump was careful not to raise the arrest warrant nor the human rights issues involved in the mass abduction of children. She also avoided pointing a finger at Russia.

Instead, she spoke in sweeping statements, starting her speech with the sentiment, “ A child’s soul knows no borders, no flags.”

She also expressed appreciation for Russia’s willingness to participate in back-channel meetings and calls “in good faith”.

“ I have learned a lot about this matter during the past three months,” Trump said. “Russia has demonstrated a willingness to disclose objective and detailed information reflective for the current situation.”

Each of the eight children returned over the last 24 hours were identified in a “ detailed report”, Trump explained, which detailed their circumstances and their biographies.

She also highlighted that Russia had provided documents to attest to the “social, medical and psychological services afforded to the Ukrainian children”.

But her remarks indicated that at least one of the children involved in the swap was a Russian minor displaced by fighting.

“Each child has lived in turmoil because of the war in Ukraine,” the first lady said.

“Three were separated from their parents and displaced to the Russian Federation because of front-line fighting. The other five were separated from family members across borders because of the conflict, including one young girl who has now been reunited from Ukraine to Russia.”

A follow-up to the Alaska summit

Friday’s brief speech comes nearly three months after Melania’s husband, Donald Trump, met with Putin in Alaska on August 15.

That summit disappointed expectations that US President Trump and Putin might make progress towards achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine. It was Putin’s first visit to US soil since 2015, and critics accused the Russian leader of leveraging the meeting to highlight his toasty relationship with Trump, who greeted him with a red carpet and a shared ride in the presidential limousine.

While at the summit, however, President Trump did pass along a letter from First Lady Melania Trump, appealing to Putin to bear in mind the suffering of children during the Ukraine war.

As with her Friday remarks, that letter declined to highlight the mass abduction of Ukrainian youths, opting instead for broad sentiments.

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Nowhere is the concept of war or the nationality of the children in question raised.

“In today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them — a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future,” Melania Trump wrote.

“Mr Putin, you can singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter. In protecting the innocence of these children, you will do more than serve Russia alone — you serve humanity itself.”

Since taking office as president for a second term, Donald Trump has attempted to pressure Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to end the war in Ukraine. But so far, a ceasefire has remained elusive.

Ukraine’s campaign

Throughout the war, Ukraine has led a campaign to seek the return of forcibly removed children. On social media this week, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office in Ukraine, offered one of his regular updates on those efforts.

A group of 23 Ukrainian children, Yermak said, had been “rescued” from Russian-occupied territories. He described how one family — a mother and daughter — had their government documents taken away, in an effort to limit their ability to escape.

“Two sisters, aged 11 and 14, were forced by the occupiers to attend a Russian school, with their mother threatened that the children would be taken away if she refused,” Yermak wrote.

“One teenage boy was left without guardianship after the occupation and was coerced into obtaining a Russian passport, yet he refused to attend a Russian school out of principle.”

Last month, the Yale School of Public Health issued a 28-page report outlining where some of the “stolen” Ukrainian children ended up. It found that 210 facilities had been set up to host the children, ranging from summer camps to orphanages to a military base.

More than 61 percent of the facilities, it said, imposed “re-education” programmes on the children to expose them to pro-Russia narratives. More than 18 percent of the facilities, meanwhile, are believed to house “militarisation” programmes, some of which involve military training and the production of military equipment like drones.

“The impact of the alleged crimes perpetuated by the Russian government are likely to leave generational scars,” the report concludes.

The Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child both include protections for minors during conflict. More than 737,000 children have been internally displaced in Ukraine as of last year, and more than 1.7 million are considered refugees.

For his part, UN human rights chief Volker Turk denounced Russia’s hostilities earlier this year, saying they had inflicted “unimaginable suffering” on Ukraine’s children.