With the help of the nonprofit organisation Save Ukraine, nearly 50 Ukrainian children were reunited with their families this month. Since 8 November last year, the organisation has assisted in returning 95 children. 

A Russian girl who was taken away from her father after she drew an anti-war picture at school has been handed to her estranged mother, authorities say.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minster Iryna Vereshchuk urged Russians on Tuesday (28 March) not to adopt children she claimed were "stolen in Ukraine" during the war. She said they had been deported to Russia.

More than a year on, Russian President Vladimir Putin's war continues to have a devastating impact across all sectors of Ukrainian society. Among the hardest hit—Ukraine's children.

Thousands of children have been found in the basements of war-torn cities like Mariupol and at orphanages in the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donbas. They include those whose parents were killed by Russian shelling as well as others in institutions or with foster families, known as “children of the state.”

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said there was evidence of the illegal transfer of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia. The Commission's report is categorical that Russia also committed other war crimes in Ukraine.

Following an extraordinary meeting on 2 March to discuss the position of SOS Children’s Villages Russia in the federation, the International Senate, the highest supervisory body of SOS Children’s Villages International, started suspension proceedings. All international funding to SOS Children's Villages Russia has been frozen with immediate effect.

At the climax of the pageantry in Moscow to mark the first anniversary of the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine, the Kremlin wheeled out children from Mariupol in occupied south-east Ukraine to “thank” their invaders.

The United Nations overwhelmingly isolated Russia on Thursday, marking one year since Moscow invaded Ukraine by calling for a "comprehensive, just and lasting peace" and again demanding Moscow withdraw its troops and stop fighting.

The UN General Assembly on Thursday called for ending the war in Ukraine and demanded Russia’s immediate withdrawal from the country, in line with the UN Charter.