'Longest massive attack': Russia fires 2000 drones and missiles in 24 hours & 60 nations sign historic pledge to 'track down' 20,000 stolen kids

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Ukraine: The Latest – May 14, 2026

Brief Overview

In this episode, The Telegraph’s "Ukraine: The Latest" dives into two main stories:

1. Russia’s unprecedented 24-hour attack against Ukraine, launching over 2,000 drones and missiles primarily targeting civilians and vital infrastructure.
2. The international response to the ongoing abduction of Ukrainian children, with 60 nations signing a historic pledge in Brussels to trace and recover over 20,000 forcibly removed young Ukrainians.

The episode features host David Knowles, Labour MP Johanna Baxter, and Maxim Maximov, Director of the Bring Kids Back Initiative. Together, they discuss the evolving Russian military campaign, energy infrastructure strikes, the changing political stance of Hungary, and the complex global effort to bring Ukrainian children home.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Massive Russian Attack on Ukraine (02:28–10:19)

• Scale of Assault (02:28–05:52):

  • Over 1,560 drones and 56 missiles struck throughout Ukraine in a 24-hour "longest massive attack," killing at least 14 and injuring over 80.
  • Moscow targeted power stations and residential areas—Kyiv’s Left Bank lost water supply, and strategic substations were hit.
  • President Zelenskyy alleges Russian intent to disrupt the atmosphere during US President Trump’s visit to China.
  • Ukrainian air defenses downed or jammed most drones/missiles, but damage was extensive.

• Ukrainian Counterstrikes (05:58–08:41):

  • Ukraine struck three Russian energy facilities: Taman Neftegaz oil terminal, Yaroslav oil refinery, and Astrakhan gas processing plant.
  • Fires at Russian energy terminals were confirmed by NASA fire monitoring and social media video evidence.

• International and Regional Developments

  • Poland: Intercepted a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea; described by Defence Minister as "aggressive action" (08:00).
  • Hungary: Marked change in stance—new government condemns Russian attacks on Zakarpattia Oblast and shifts toward supporting Ukraine and the EU (08:38–08:41).

• US Legislative Support (09:26–10:19):

  • The Ukraine Support Act, advancing in the US House, promises further aid, sanctions, and bipartisan backing.

2. Political and Humanitarian Focus: Stolen Ukrainian Children (10:19–29:24)

• Scope of the Crisis (10:19–15:14):

  • Russia's deportation and "re-education" of Ukrainian children is characterized as “a calculated Russian attack on Ukraine’s future.”
  • Sanctions have increasingly targeted not just high-level officials (like Putin) but also lower-level individuals and institutions directly involved in abductions and indoctrination.

• International Coalition Response:

  • 60 countries convened in Brussels to coordinate action: pledges included £1.2 million from the UK, €50 million from the EU, and funds from Canada and Lithuania.
  • Focus extends from tracing and returning children to rehabilitating and supporting reunited families.

• Sanctions Strategy and Parliamentary Action (17:35–27:58):

  • Johanna Baxter (MP) discusses how individuals/entities are selected for sanctions, stressing the significance of international coordination and the growing depth of targeted measures.
  • Highlights importance of addressing Russian disinformation, indoctrination, and the militarization of youth.
  • Advocates for labeling the abduction of children as genocide under international law.
    • Memorable quote ([27:58], Johanna Baxter):
      “It would certainly appear from everything we’re seeing that that is what is happening… The forcible deportation of children is a war crime, and Russia needs to be held accountable for this.”

3. Interview with Maxim Maximov, Bring Kids Back Initiative (29:53–56:00)

• Progress of International Coalition (30:22–34:37):

  • Coalition now at 49 member states, with 63 delegations attending the latest meeting.
  • Structured action across six key work streams: tracing/verification, organized returns, rehabilitation, accountability, diplomatic efforts, and sanctions.
  • Major new financial commitments from the UK, EU, Canada, Lithuania, and others support systematized tracing, accountability, and family reunification efforts.

• Challenges in Tracing and Verification (36:12–41:19):

  • Russia refuses to supply mandated information to the ICRC or provide access, forcing Ukraine to rely on open-source intelligence and data fusion.

  • Recent tracing initiatives have allowed Ukraine to verify the disappearance/location of 20,000 children, but the actual number likely exceeds this.

  • Memorable quote ([39:03], Maxim Maximov):
    “If you look over the last six months…that number [of verified cases] has actually been very actively moving…Now in May, we have more than 20,000.”

• On-the-ground Challenges and Need for Continued Support (41:19–44:17):

  • Reintegration of returned children is complex and underfunded; local NGOs do most of the frontline work with limited resources.
  • Mediation for returns remains ad hoc, with only about 150 children returned through official mediation channels, and no clear, scalable process for bulk returns.

• Historic UN Resolution and Hopes for the Future (42:56–46:53):

  • New UN mandate demands coordination among agencies to create standard operating procedures for return and verification—potentially a “game-changer” if Russia cooperates.
  • “If there is a structured process—rules, operating procedures, child rights protection standards—then that would allow us to scale the returns…” ([44:53], Maxim Maximov)

• The Reality of Russian Obstruction (52:23–54:53):

  • Russian authorities offer little consistency or earnestness in mediation, often using bureaucracy and shifting standards to obstruct returns.

  • Memorable quote ([54:27], Maxim Maximov):
    “What they say publicly…is not actually part of the reality. They’ll find some other grounds to delay, to not be responsive, to find grounds where this can’t be happening, etc.—it doesn’t work like that.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.”
  —Maxim Maximov ([03:07])

• On collective responsibility for war crimes:
  “It really points to the collective responsibility of Russians, not just its leadership…there is a collective responsibility for the machine that you’re part of, whether you realize it or not.”
  —David Knowles ([26:39])

• On the importance of targeted sanctions:
  “Russia have consistently tried to evade sanctions…That level of granularity is really important. It also signals to those individuals that there are consequences internationally for being involved…”
  —Johanna Baxter ([26:00])

• On the complexity and scale of recovering abducted children:
  “Every case is unique…war is another layer that makes it all even more complicated…they have the kids in their hands and they have the ultimate call.”
  —Maxim Maximov ([54:57])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:28 – Episode introduction, attack overview, Ukrainian/Western responses
• 05:58 – Ukrainian counterstrikes on Russian energy
• 08:38 – Hungary’s political shift on Russia
• 10:19 – The children crisis and international efforts
• 17:35 – Johanna Baxter: Parliamentary and sanctions strategy
• 27:58 – Definition of genocide & government approach
• 29:53 – Interview: Maxim Maximov, Bring Kids Back Initiative
• 34:37 – Coalition progress, tracing, and verification explained
• 41:19 – Barriers to returning children and operational challenges
• 42:56 – Historic UN mechanism’s potential
• 52:23 – Mediation pitfalls and Russia’s obstruction
• 54:57 – Complexity of individual child cases

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Conclusion

This episode provides an unflinching, deeply informed snapshot of current realities on the ground in Ukraine, with a dual focus on military escalation and the humanitarian struggle to locate and return abducted Ukrainian children. The podcast delivers rich insights into international diplomacy, sanctions, and the evolving architecture for child protection and recovery. Through candid, passionate interviews, the episode stresses the collective responsibility and moral imperative facing the world—highlighting technical hurdles, diplomatic progress, and the cruel realities parents and advocates confront every day.

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Transcript

[Johanna Baxter]

The telegraph.

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[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

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[David Knowles]

I'm Adelie Pejman Ponte and this is Ukraine. The latest today as Russia pummels Ukraine with over 1500 missiles and drones since yesterday targeting civilians and energy infrastructure. Ukraine hits three energy facilities, refineries and power plants in Russia. We then focus on the issue of children who have been deported to Russia or or to unknown locations in the occupied territories. There has been several announcements on that topic this week with sanctions from the EU and the UK as well as the high level meeting of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children on Monday in Brussels.

[Maxim Maximov]

Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.

[David Knowles]

Russia does not want fees.

[Maxim Maximov]

If I'm President. I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours. We are with you.

[David Knowles]

Not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years.

[Maxim Maximov]

Nobody's going to break us. We are strong. Where are Ukrainians?

[David Knowles]

It's Thursday the 14th of May, four years and 79 days since the full scale invasion began. Today I'm joined by Labour MP Johanna Baxter and Maxim Maximov, Director of the Bringitzback Initiative in Ukraine. Dom was reporting yesterday on the daytime raid on Ukraine happening in real time while they were recording the show. Remember that at midday yesterday there were eight groups of shahed type drones standing still in the air. Well, this morning Zelenskyy announced that 1560 drones had targeted the country throughout the day and it had been one of the longest massive Russian attacks against Ukraine so far. The attacks have killed 14 people and injured over 80 others, including children. Zelenskyy added that Moscow was deliberately trying to, I quote, spoil the overall political atmosphere during the US President Donald Trump's visit visit to China. And Zelenskyy also cited a report from the Ukrainian intelligence that Russia could follow the drone wave with missile strikes to overwhelm Ukraine's air defence forces and inflict I quote again from Zelenskyy as much grief and pain as possible. And indeed overnight the missiles came. 56 missiles of various types including Iskander ballistic and Kinjal Aero Ballistic missiles were launched in the overnight raid, as well as 675 one way attack drones. According to Ukraine's air force, 29 x 101 cruise missiles, 12 Iskander or S400 missiles and 652 of the drones were shot or jammed before reaching their targets. At 3pm Kyiv time today, 1pm London. Seven people had been confirmed killed and another 44 injured in the capital. Energy infrastructure was also targeted in Kyiv with a substation, as dtech, the energy company reported. So if you remember from the winter months, that is exactly the type of infrastructure that was targeted in January and February. It is basically the halfway point between the high voltage coming out of the

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

power plants before it gets redistributed to the residents with power that they can use.

[David Knowles]

Also damaged in the attack was a high voltage power line. Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, also reported that running water had been disrupted in the eastern part of Kyiv. That's the Left Bank. This story is unfolding so we'll have more on that tomorrow. Meanwhile, Ukraine targeted three major Russian energy facilities overnight. First, the Taman Neftegaz oil terminal. It is one of Russia's key oil terminal near the port of Taman on the Black Sea coast. It exports crude oil, fuel oil, diesel fuel and liquefied petroleum gas. Then the Yaroslav oil refinery, which produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and is, I quote from the General Staff, a key component in supporting the enemy army's logistics. And then the Astrakhan gas processing plant, which belongs to Gazprom and sits just up the Volga river on the Caspian Sea. On the videos available on social media, you can sort of see plumes of smoke rising up from the facilities, NASA's fire monitoring system. However, firms appear to corroborate the official's claim with a fire reported at an oil storage facility near the port at the export terminal in Krasnodakrai. That's when pipelines then take out the oil through the Black Sea in order to be exported further afield. Poland intercepted a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over the international water in the Baltic Sea yesterday. It's an aircraft usually used for electronic surveillance and reconnaissance operations. Polish Defence Minister Vladislav Kozinyak Kammyzh described the incident as an aggressive action by Moscow aimed at testing Poland's air defense system. He said that the aircraft had been flying with its transponders off the previous day. Poland had activated and I quote, necessary forces and resources, including scrambling aircraft during the large scale Russian attack on Ukraine. And in Hungary. The tone towards Russia is quickly changing after the election. Budapest summoned the Russian ambassador after the strikes on western Ukraine today. Targeting Specifically Zakarpatia Oblast, I.e. the westernmost oblast region in Ukraine with the city of Ugerod is located, which is usually considered one of the safest. It was an unprecedented amount of drones that targeted the oblast yesterday. Foreign Minister Anita Orban, no relation to Viktor, said she would condemn the attack in her meeting with the ambassador. President Zelenskyy praised the announcement, saying that it sent a significant message. It is also worth noting that yesterday in a conference, the new Foreign Minister of Hungary, Anita Orban also said Budapest would no longer serve as a Trojan

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

horse for Moscow within the European Union.

[David Knowles]

She also declared that voters had chosen Europe over Russia at the ballot box last month. And the new Hungarian pm, Petr Madyar has offered to meet President Zelenskyy in Zakopatia Oblast in the near future. So that's the oblast that was targeted last night to discuss how to best support the Hungarian community in Ukraine, which is a stark and welcome change of tone from the previous Prime Minister. Just a note also on the continuation of the corruption scandal in Ukraine this morning After a three day long hearing, the Anti Corruption Court placed Andrew Yermak, the former head of the President's Office of Ukraine, in custody for two months and set bail at $3.1 million. Francis spoke yesterday about the pressure rebuilding again in the United States. The Ukraine Support act will indeed head to the floor of the U.S. house of Representatives yesterday. A petition to force a vote officially gained enough signature. 218 to be exact. The Ukraine Support act is a bipartisan bill that affirms US Support for Ukraine, imposes further economic sanctions against Russia and provides Kyiv with additional military aid. It is worth noting that while most of the signatories to the discharge position came from House Democrats, the final crucial signature came from an independent representative, Kevin Kiely, a former Republican who recently changed his affiliation. And finally, Dom and Francis yesterday were talking about Delta, Ukraine's situational awareness and battlefield management system, while the US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll had a few words to say about it. And it's a remarkable admission from within the administration.

[Maxim Maximov]

Ukraine's Delta Common Operating System, their modular open system architecture, command and control system is absolutely incredible. It fully integrates every single drone, every sensor and every shooting platform into just one single network. Ours does not.

[David Knowles]

It seems like Ukraine may have some cards to play after all. And for more on the Delta system, yet another reminder to watch Dom's film where he meets a WHO representative and sees Delta for himself. Speaking of votes, last item. Russian lawmakers have approved a bill allowing Putin to invade foreign countries. It allows the Russian president to order troop developments abroad to protect Russian citizens facing arrest, detention, trial or other perceived persecution by foreign nations and international courts. Vyacheslav Volodin, the chair of the Russian State Duma, said, I quote, western justice has turned into a repressive machine for dealing with those who disagree with the decisions imposed by European officials. In these circumstances, it is important to do everything to ensure that our citizens abroad are protected. And Andrei Kartapulov, head of the State Duma Defence Committee, claimed that the proposed legislation would, I quote, counter the campaign of rampant Russophobia that continues abroad. Well, isn't that reassuring? Right? On that note, let's turn to the main topic for today, Ukrainian children, which is probably how Russia imagines fighting these future wars. The children that have been deported from Ukraine to Russia to occupied territories, as we've talked about earlier today, but also those who are living currently under occupation in the occupied territories and are being indoctrinated and militarized by Russia's propaganda machine. We're going to go further into the detail of that in the interviews, because it's really important to understand that these issues are not separate. Living under occupation, being deported to a camp, to an adoption center, to a summer camp, to a militarization center. These are all connected because they're all different strategies and applied by Russia with one common goal, to raise the Ukrainian identity from the youngest generations of Ukrainians and to create a Russian identity instead, one that can be drafted into the army. So it was a big week on this front, first of all, because Sunday was Mother's Day in Ukraine. And that's how the speeches in Brussels from various politicians opened on Monday for the high level meeting of the foreign ministers of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. They all expressed thoughts and their support to mothers in Ukraine who didn't know where their children had been taken. And I would add that we can also think of all the mothers that have died since the beginning of this awful war. Young mothers, mothers to be old mothers, grandmothers, and all the children that are left without one. The meeting was chaired by the Euskaia Kallis, Andrew Sibiha, Foreign Minister of Ukraine, and Anita Anand, Canada's foreign Minister, who, it should be noted, alternated her speech between French and English. Beautifully and seamlessly, it needs to be said, and as she should, my family in Quebec would point out, but still well done. The ministers reiterated how the fate of these children had to be part of a, I quote, just and lasting peace, and that the abduction of children was a calculated Russian attack on Ukraine's future. Kayakallas spoke about Ukraine's future integration into the eu. We'll do more work on that very soon, saying that integration was not charity but an investment and that Ukraine's integration

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

into the EU was more important to

[David Knowles]

the EU than Ukraine's destruction was to Russia. I also wanted to share with you an excerpt from Andriy Sibihaz, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine's speech on Monday, because he shared two quotes. The first one, they simply took us away, and then you don't belong to anyone. And then the second, they took us away and told us nobody needed us. Fairly similar, but these two quotes, he said both came from Ukrainian children, but eight years apart. The first one was from a child who'd been deported to Nazi Germany. The second was from a child from Mariupol. One thing that's worth pointing out about the meeting on Monday is that the international community was really focusing on the return of Ukrainian children. So far in the last two years, there have been a series of sanctions from the eu, from the UK and from the us, targeting entities and individuals that are involved in some respects in the deportation, the indoctrination, the militarisation of children. It started with Putin and Maryal Vovabalova, the Children's Commissioner in Russia. And now these sanctions are more targeted. They target specific entities, specific institutions, specific groups and specific individuals.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

Much more granular.

[David Knowles]

We'll come back to that in the interviews. But that doesn't directly help returning the children. It hinders the process. Maybe it hinders Russia, but it doesn't help in the actual return. It's something I pointed out in September to then Foreign Minister David Lammy when I interviewed him about the latest round of sanctions that had just been published then. It was targeting, at the time, 11 individuals that were involved in the deportation. And I told him, this is good, but it's not actually bringing children back. What can we do? What can the international community, what can the UK do to actually help Ukraine return them? We get into that more in the interviews, but that was a big pivot in the announcements on Monday, some of which were notably the UK bringing 1.2 million pounds to the verification and tracing mechanism in Ukraine that helps locate children and identify where they've been taken, where they are in this very moment, not where they were at one point in time. Several other countries have pledged their own donations to that cause, for example, Canada, the EU, Lithuania. The EU's enlargement commissioner, Marte Kros, also said that the European Commission would be bringing nearly 50 million euros in a separate grant to support Ukraine's child protection system, which is very much needed once you bring back the children for rehabilitation. Countries like Slovenia and Croatia also offered summer camps for families and newly returned children so they could restore access, resources and therapy and be rehabilitated. This topic of what to do with the families once they are reunified with the children once they come back was central to the conversations. So the next summit of the international coalition will be held in Toronto at the end of September. And let's go first into our first interview exploring this issue more in detail, trying to take apart the sanctions mechanism and what works and what doesn't work and what the UK and the international community can do to help Ukraine return children. Johanna Backstab, Labour MP for Paisley and Redfishire south in Scotland, joined me this morning in the studio. Johanna Baxter, thank you very much for joining me in the studio today. Can you start by maybe shedding light for us on how these people and entities are chosen and what your role and the role of Parliament working with the Foreign Office is when it comes to identifying them.

[Johanna Baxter]

So I think there's a number of ways in which those individuals and entities are identified, not all of which I'm privy to. I'm Muir Backventure, but I think there has been a degree of coordination around the sanctions of those individuals and entities. I'm pleased about that. I've very much been arguing with the Foreign Commonwealth Office that we should coordinate with our international allies, both in the EU and the US on sanctions related to the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children. There were a number of those sanctions that the UK designated the other day that had already been sanctioned by the eu, so we're catching up a little bit there. But There were also 17 sanctions that the UK made that had not already been made by the EU. So we're ahead of the game on some of that. So I guess it depends where the intelligence sharing is and where that is within each of the individual countries that allows those designations to be made. But I do think that those sanctions are very welcome. I have been pressing Stephen Doughty on those, and I think greater coordination with our allies on those sanctions is a really positive thing. I've been pressing Stephen Doughty for that.

[David Knowles]

Yes, actually pressing for sanctions was in your report that you published in April 2025, following a trip to Ukraine yourself. And that was, I believe, what sort of really shed light to the magnitude of the problem in the UK and in the UK political conversation. Can you maybe please explain how that report changed the conversation here? And was that a pivotal moment for the government, for the Foreign Office, for parliamentaries like yourself, to kind of grasp what was going on?

[Johanna Baxter]

I think it was a pivotal moment, and I think that was demonstrated by the fact that within two hours of the report being published, I was sanctioned by Russia. I wear that as a badge of honor. But what I wanted to do with that report was really outline what Russia were doing in the targeting of Ukrainian children. Because when I visited Ukraine, I was absolutely flabbergasted at the scale of what they were doing and the fact that nobody, or at that time, it felt like very few people in this country were even aware of what was going on. So I wanted to shed light on the issue itself, outline exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it, but what the UK government needed to do in response. And I do think that it raised awareness and particularly amongst parliamentarians. I've had a number of colleagues who have spoken to me since and said before they saw that report, they didn't know what was happening.

[David Knowles]

They weren't aware at all.

[Johanna Baxter]

They weren't. Because this is an issue that hasn't been headlining the news either in this country or internationally. So I really wanted to use that report as a way of shining a light on this and moving it up the agenda. In terms of the conversation about our response to what's happening in Ukraine. Wanted to lay out some practical steps that the government could take to try to halt this from happening, recover the children and hold the people who are doing it accountable under international law. So I'm really pleased that, you know, before that report was published, I think 20 individuals had been sanctioned for the forceful deportation of Ukrainian children. Last September, we saw them an additional 11, and then obviously on the 11th of May, we saw an additional 85. So it really has seen the government's action on this ramp up. And I'm really pleased about that.

[David Knowles]

Yes, that's great. And it was one of your main calls to action to sanction these people and these entities. When I was speaking in Brussels on Tuesday with the director of Bring Kids Back Initiative from the President's office, and that's the second half of this episode, we talked about how this issue, this was kind of the first steps for the international community to gather around this issue with this high level meeting. It's the second one of this kind. And that had reached a sort of maturity at the international level to think about sanctions that are ramping up, but also the return of children. Do you agree with that? That we're at a moment of maturity when it comes to understanding and grasping the scale of what's going on?

[Johanna Baxter]

I think there's still work to be done. I think Maxim and the Bring Kids Back team do an incredible job. Whilst we've shone light on the issue, whilst we've seen an increase in the number of sanctions being applied, some of the things haven't moved as quickly as they could do so. I would point to, for example, tackling some of the misinformation and indoctrination that's taking place within the occupied territories. This all relates to the fact that the stealing of children by Russia is one attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, but that is part of a wider strategy that they have which also involves the indoctrination and militarization of Ukrainian children. 1.6 million children are living in the occupied territories. Their access to impartial news is restricted. Their education is being disrupted. They are being told to sing the Russian anthem, pledge allegiance to the Russian motherland, use weapons Absolutely. So I think one of the important things about the UK sanctions that took place the other day was that a lot of those related to some of the misinformation through the Russian foreign interference, manipulation and interference entity. So I think that is really important because that is part of Russia's strategy is to simply erase Ukrainian culture, either by forcibly taking the children, indoctrinating them, or militarizing them in terms of the children that have been taken. We need to continue with the tracing mechanism. One of the things I was very pleased to get commitment to last year was for governments, UK government support for the tracing pilot mechanism that we are supporting Ukraine with that has since identified 600 of the children that have been taken. And that's why you've seen the official statistics in terms of the numbers taken creep up, because it's actually more reflective of the numbers that have been taken now, because we now know where those children are. We need to do more in terms of the rehabilitation of children that have been returned. Save Ukraine is one of the main NGOs working in this area. Mikaela Kiloba is the director of Save Ukraine. They have returned over a thousand of the children that have been returned and there's only been about 2,000 of those. They're doing incredible work. They don't get any direct government support from the UK at the moment. That's another issue that I've pressed Stephen

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on,

[Johanna Baxter]

so I'll keep working on that.

[David Knowles]

Well, do update us when there's news about that, because we would very much like to know. So the UK has pledged £1.2 million, I believe, on on Monday for the pilot tracing mechanism. You mentioned the disinformation and the indoctrination. That's really important because one of the key takeaways, and you've explained it very well about the children, is it is a spectrum of strategies in order to

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

manipulate this new generation.

[David Knowles]

It's not just the deportation, but these

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

two issues need to be understood together.

[David Knowles]

And one thing that really struck me in this new round of sanctions is that we had moved from the very first sanctions to very high level individuals like Putin or Marya Vovillova, to now targeting disinformation, targeting indoctrination, with very, very specific, very granular sanctions. So not only the entity itself, which

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

I believe is called the Social Design Agency, which writes and produces the propaganda,

[David Knowles]

but then it targets the writers themselves, the producers, the translators. So can you maybe just explain a little bit of how these quote unquote, normal people are targeted by these sanctions? What does it change in their life?

[Johanna Baxter]

Well, because I think that's necessary because Russia have consistently tried to evade sanctions, just having another entity, having another name of that entity trying to evade them. So I think that level of granularity is really important. I think it also signals to those individuals that there are consequences internationally for being involved in this. I think that's no bad thing. This is. I mean, let's remember a war crime. It's a breach of international humanitarian law. So individuals involved in that need to know that they will be held accountable by the international community.

[David Knowles]

I think it's also interesting because it talks to the banality of evil, doesn't it? It's regular people doing their regular jobs, that. That on the face of it, they may not think twice, may seem innocuous. And it really points to the collective responsibility of Russians, not just its leadership, much like we had this reckoning about Germany after World War II. There is a collective responsibility for the machine that you're part of, whether you realize it or not. Another thing that you'd called for in your report was for a parliamentary debate around using the term genocide to qualify what happens to Ukrainian children. Following your recommendation, I had put the question to then Foreign Minister David Lame in September. And he. He'd strongly condemned Russia, obviously, and he sort of skirted around his answer on the genocide. He said, and I quote from the interview we published, these are horrendous acts that most people think breaches international humanitarian law. Ultimately, it's for the lawyers and the courts to determine issues like genocide. But I think it's blatantly clear that this egregious denial of rights for children, an attempt to deny them their culture, their origins, hop back to the worst kinds of behavior, to deeply colonial behavior, and it's deeply, deeply offensive. You use that term genocide to what happens to the children in Ukraine, and do you think the government should. Is that cowardice that they're not?

[Johanna Baxter]

So I think it is. Obviously, for a court to decide whether it is a genocide certainly looks like one from a layperson's point of view. As I said, you know, a backbench mp, I'm not an international humanitarian lawyer, but it would certainly appear from everything that we're saying that that is what is happening. We certainly know it is a war crime. Children have special protected status under international law. The forcible deportation of children is a war crime, and Russia needs to be held accountable for this. A situation where Ukrainian children are being put on adoption websites in Russia, where Russian families are able to search by hair color, eye color and temperament. I'm sorry, it's not Russian state taking care of children. It is forcible deportation and it is denying them their own families. Their families don't know where they are, don't know how to get them back. In no way is that simply about Russia looking after those children. So there's no denying what they're doing and to what end. And they need to be held accountable for that.

[David Knowles]

Yeah, I can tell it's an issue that's very close to your heart indeed. And I think that's a good place where to end. Thank you very much, Johanna, for joining me in the studio today.

[Johanna Baxter]

Pleasure.

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[David Knowles]

While I was in Brussels at the beginning of the week, I caught up with Maxim Maximov, the head of Bring It Back Ukraine, the initiative from the President's office to look for and return these children. So we're in Brussels currently and yesterday there was the meeting of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. It's an initiative that started in the last year or so and that is gathering some speed. What is your assessment of the announcements made yesterday by the various countries?

[Maxim Maximov]

The International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children has been launched by Ukraine in Canada in 2024, and since then it grew to almost 50 members. We had 63 delegations participating, which is more than the number of members that we have have currently formally as members of the International Coalition. So that gives us some positive momentum. The last meeting was attended by around 40 delegations, so this one is by 60, which is great. We have some growth. We had two new members joining Cyprus and Switzerland, so we're now officially at number 49 of formal members, which makes us happier. It was a meeting that was very much focused on on practical outcomes and tangible ways how the International Coalition could be supporting Ukraine's efforts to return the kids, to trace the kids, to provide them with reintegration support, to pursue accountability and other streams of work. We structured the conversation yesterday across six key streams of work. The first one is strengthening and tracing verification systems, second, scaling up organized return, three, boosting reintegration and rehabilitation system in Ukraine, four, accountability, five, strengthening the diplomatic track and six, sanctions. And on all of those work streams, we've Yesterday heard pledges and commitments from various member states with concrete practical contributions, whether those are on the level of expertise, experience sharing or financial contributions, so to name a few. The EU has announced a major program for strengthening Ukraine's child protection system in the amount of 50 million euro. The United Kingdom they have announced further increase in their support of our tracing mechanism, 1.2 million more from pounds from the UK which are leading already the the coordination and support for the tracing and have been absolutely instrumental on this and they keep doing that. Then we had Canada announcing 3.4 million to be invested in the work of the Human Rights Monitoring mission in Ukraine which would help document the war crimes. Lithuania announced 10 million euro program that would be cross sectoral, meaning it would be focused on tracing, on returns, on reintegration and accountability. That program also included a call for proposals that was announced last week to support the NGO efforts on returns and accountability. Then we have had probably one of the most major sanctions packages to date on this issue announced by the uk, Canada and the eu. And plus Norway said yesterday that they are committing to join these packages as well. So it was quite extensive in substance and also it was prepared and announced more or less during the same time frame and time window, which is great. It also sounds an important signal. There were also non financial commitments or Croatia said they would be developing program that would allow Ukrainian children return from Russia and occupation and their religious relatives to go on the rehabilitation. In Croatia, Slovenia and Georgia said that they would also organize some kind of summer camps for children to be able to rehabilitate within their territories. But on top of this kind of contributions, I think it also was important to hear the alignment of messaging among the members. And I think we're now at the stage where the operational framework of the Brinkisbach UA and lots of our partners in Ukraine, Ukraine, the government and CSOs has shown that this operational framework works and we know what we're doing and we know specifically and very concretely what kind of initiatives needs to be supported so that we collectively can do our job even better.

[David Knowles]

Would you say that it's taken a long time for the international community to get to a point of understanding what the issue was and be able to

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

rally around supporting Ukraine. On that particular point yesterday, did we reach a moment of maturity?

[Maxim Maximov]

I think we're getting there. It definitely seemed so. Again, the messaging seemed to be aligned. It was a high level messaging, right? Not working level conversations. The priorities were clear. Did they take international community loan? I think it's. I would reframe it in a way that I think it took us all quite some time and different attempts and lessons learned on different streams of work on like, how do we find the kids? There were many different initiatives, some more successful, some less successful. Four years into the war, we seem to know how to actually find the kids and what kind of resources. We need the same for returns. There have been many different experiences, many pathways explored, and now there are things that work better or worse, but we know what works, what doesn't. Reintegration More than 2,000 children have come through our reintegration framework and algorithm, which provided a lot of actors in Ukraine with a lot of knowledge and experience on how to deal with it. And as we refine our approaches, we can also see much clearly what the gaps are and where actually, what are those gaps still left, so that we can also communicate with our partners and direct them into the most dire needs. And the same applies to basically all the streams of work.

[David Knowles]

So you've mentioned a lot of different packages of support coming from different countries,

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

both in the form of money and operational resources. So for example, the UK is providing money to support the verification center in Kyiv that's tracking and tracing the children. Can you describe to me a little bit more how that works and where it fits in the process? As far as I understand, it is basically creating a starting point for Ukraine to know that a child is indeed missing is basically the first step in searching for the kid, isn't it?

[Maxim Maximov]

Yeah, well, you're right. Taking a step back for a moment, we need to be very clear to understand why do we need an analytical center, why do we need open source intelligence operators and why we need all those resources. The reason for that is that, and I can't sound repetitive, but it is really important to sort of underline that we are inventing all this tracing mechanism because things that were supposed to work do not work.

[David Knowles]

What doesn't work?

[Maxim Maximov]

For example, for instance, there is an obligation of the Russian Federation to share information with icrc, the tracing agency, about the children that they have under their own control of Ukrainian nationality, which they're not doing, which they're not doing. If they were doing that, we would not need to be tracing the kids, doing OSINT work, investigative work, because we would have all this data and then it would be to a different process to determine what happens to those children once we have established their status. Right. But because that is not happening, we often operate with indirect evidence of what has been happening, because not only we don't have information about the kids, from the Russians. But we also don't have humanitarian access to the occupied territories. So nobody can go there and check. It's not only Ukraine, it's any international organization. Nobody can go into occupied territories and check on the kids. So we have to largely operate and work with indirect evidence, like the news articles, the leaks of information, the announcements by the Russians themselves, the social media, what is being posted there. That is how a lot of data is gathered. Plus of course, there is a lot of data that is in the possession of the government agencies who are feeding this information into the Mogul J. And when you take all those pieces of data together, you end up with a huge data set that is in different formats, that is not communicating to each other automatically, necessarily. That is sometimes duplicative. That is sometimes not only duplicative, but contradictory. One piece to each other. To get to a point where Ministry of Justice was able to verify 20,000 children. Children, you have to go through all those files.

[David Knowles]

And that's why that number stuck, right? Because verifying takes a whole lot of time and resources.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

It's a very complex operation. You've just described when we all know that the number is definitely much, much, much bigger than that.

[Maxim Maximov]

I wouldn't agree that the number is stuck because if you look over the course of the last six months when we launched pilot tracing mechanism, that number has actually been very actively moving because in the beginning of September there were hundreds of of cases verified by the moj. And now in May we have more than 20,000. So that has been a very active process. Plus that allowed the teams that are working with MOJ to help MOJ establish the locations of more than 1300 children. They have identified 600 new children that Ukraine didn't know anything about through indirect evidence. And now answering finally your question after this broad context setting.

[David Knowles]

Thank you. I had kept track to that, yes.

[Maxim Maximov]

Now answering that also question about why is this support to tracing mechanisms important and what it actually entails, the processes that I'm describing, it is a lot of very specialized work. It cannot be done by people without relevant expertise, without relevant software, without relevant hardware, without relevant capabilities on the technical side, but of course primarily with people who know what they're saying. Doing that's a very niche expertise. So it's not easy to find it in like government agencies who are not used to doing this work. And it's not never been their mandate. So having support from international partners such as the uk, Canada, Norway and others who support the tracing mechanism allowed us to get that expertise and get these Resources and we have now more than 50 people working on it. 24 7.

[David Knowles]

I was going to ask that pilot tracing mechanism in the verification center, how big of an outfit are we talking about at the moment since they've been able to make such progress in recent months?

[Maxim Maximov]

There are at least two teams that are helping the Ministry of Justice with this work, with whom Minister of Justice has entered into cooperation supported by international partners. I won't disclose the second team, but taking those teams together, I think they are in the range of 40, 50 people, maybe 35, 45 more. Primarily investigators, analysts, data specialists who have very niche expertise.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

On the other end, you've got the operational side of returns and I've spoken to a lot of organizations on the ground like ucrn, Save Ukraine on how they do that. It's a very hazardous process and a very long and difficult thing to organize. Are you expecting any support on that front? And what sort of support would you like the international community to provide?

[Maxim Maximov]

Yes, scaling up the returns has been one of the deliverables for this event. One of the ways how we think these efforts could be supported if local organizations, local Ukrainian organizations working on the ground, the ones that you named like Save Ukraine, ucrn, Plakhta and others, get operational support to do their work. That's why we as brinkers back ua have put that as a request and there's a call to action to the coalition members. And for instance, Lithuania's initiative, it covers that. So it's going to be addressing that specific need to support the organizations doing the returns.

[David Knowles]

So is that money? Is that vehicles?

[Maxim Maximov]

It's primarily financial. I think it depending on the specific organization you can look into, what exactly do they need? Do they need more people? Do they need need more cars? Do they need cell phones? What do they need? It depends, but it's usually financial contribution that they require.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

The next meeting of the Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children is at the end of September in Toronto. It was announced yesterday by Canada's Foreign Minister. What do you hope to achieve in that time frame and what are the expectations within the next five months?

[Maxim Maximov]

One of the things that believe is actually of paramount importance, which has been the deliverable to this event. And I think it's going to be somewhat an important element to the meeting in Toronto in five months is the implementation of the younger resolution on the return of Ukrainian children. Because for the first time, I believe in the history of the un, the United nations organizations have received, received a direct mandate by the General assembly to work on the return of certain Children who were forcibly transferred. This has never happened before.

[David Knowles]

Is that the beginning of an official mechanism?

[Maxim Maximov]

This definitely has the potential to become. So the mandate is pretty clear. The United Nations Secretary General, through the Representative on the Children in Armed Conflict, needs to coordinate all the UN agencies, agencies to make sure that the kids are returned, to make sure that there is access to the kids in the occupied territories and under Russian control, and that there is an information exchange. When we think about the results that we were able to achieve through with many our partners in Ukraine and with international partners, support, such as the return of 2,000 children, I don't like when people say, oh, this is not a huge number, so many still left, because I know what a tremendous effort it was to take. And 2,000 children returned even more. In the context of a lack of cooperation from the Russian side, I think it's more closer to a miracle rather than the performance, to be honest. But at the same time, mediation is an informal process that is not necessarily guided by certain rules and standards and procedures.

[David Knowles]

That's mediation from third party states like Qatar, for example.

[Maxim Maximov]

Yes, yes. Or the United States. Then the other ways to get the kids back through the support of NGOs is also not really something that can be scaled up indefinitely. It has own risks, it has own security considerations, and you can't really get all the kids back through that. Why the US and resolution is so important? Because if, and of course, it's a big if, but if it gets implemented and we get to a structured mechanism where we have the rules of the game, the standard operating procedures, the child rights protection standards embedded in the process, then that would allow us to scale the returns through the space that it requires. It won't happen without independent monitoring and verification rules. It wouldn't happen without Russia and Ukraine exchanging information in good faith with the neutral parties such as the un. But if there is a structured process on how this needs to be happening, if that is implemented, then that would be one of our best shots at getting as many children back as possible.

[David Knowles]

So that would in turn, or you

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

hope, replace the mediation process.

[Maxim Maximov]

Let's see. I don't want to go get ahead of myself on this, but I definitely think that this is a historical opportunity. There have never been such resolutions before. It provides a very clear mandate of what needs to be happening. And I think the amount of pressure on the other side that there is now in the public domain is at its peak. We hope it's going to be increasing. It's still not sufficient because they're not still Releasing the kits. So when they would start releasing, then I would be able to say, okay, this is enough. But we're not there yet. Although it has been on a growing pace with independent mechanisms in place, then we wouldn't need any other pathways. We have the rescue operations, the mediation, because we don't have the mechanism.

[David Knowles]

My understanding of the case, cases where

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

the kids have been returned to Ukraine by Russia is that the argument that Russia responds to is when you can find living relatives claiming the kids being able to take them back, whether that's parents looking for them, but also relatives like grandparents, aunts, uncle of those who have been returned, that's the main pool of children, is my understanding. That leaves out, as you very well know, a whole lot of children, thousands of them. Are you hoping that the UN mechanism, if it were to be, would be able to target the different cases because there are so many different scenarios of children that have been forcibly transferred to Russia and how.

[Maxim Maximov]

Yeah, I think at the end of the day, at the heart of this process is going to be some sort of form of independent best interest assessment. Assessment, Right. The assessment of the best interests of the child. That is what guides the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and that is at the heart of child rights protection globally in the world. The question is who gets to make a shot? Who gets to do this assessment and what would be the conditions for doing those assessments? Russia as occupying power, as the one who has these kids illegally under its control, cannot be making those decisions and cannot be making those shots. It needs to be someone neutral and with expertise who wouldn't be incentivized in any shape or form to make this or that decision. Who would be looking at it from this perspective of international law? Probably if there is a certain unified mechanism for review of these cases, of these different types of cases, I think it would probably have have its subject matter so it would be outlined what kind of cases it's looking into. And then we would be able, as Ukraine, we would be able to submit different kinds of cases and they would be reviewed and then there would be a certain process after that. I would be surprised if we as Ukraine would not submit all the cases that are verified to review and to get an answer. It's really important piece of context that sometimes I feel people are may be missing is that we are often scrambling for details on the case. A rather typical case could be that we see an article in the newspaper that orphans from Donetsk region came to some kind of city in Russia to celebrate Victory Day. We See that face, we do the tracking of that phase and then we identify that, well, this kid was in institution or with a family member back then in Donetsk region. And from that case we look into the open source intelligence and we are able to identify that, well, this kid actually went there on a bus with other kids and we are able to find other kids, but we are often unable to contact their parents or their relatives because often those parents and relatives are still within the occupied territories and we don't have access to occupied territories because Russia is not giving it. So I'm sure that if there is to be a mechanism, I would assume that the number of the cases that we would submit would be broader than the verified. Because for Ukraine to verify a case, it also needs to pass a certain threshold that we would be convinced that, okay, this is indeed deportation of forcible transfer. There is a much larger number where we have some indirect evidence, but not sufficient for the verification commission at MOJ to vote and come to a conclusion that, yes, this is indeed deportation or forcible transfer. So. So definitely I would expect that we would be able to move with more categories, with broader categories than are currently at the core of the mediation.

[David Knowles]

I'm also imagining that the support that has been pledged yesterday by the different countries on tracing, etc. Will help in the verification process of these more complicated, more blurry cases where the information is not quite direct.

[Maxim Maximov]

Absolutely. That is actually super helpful. For instance, as I said, only within the pilot of, and it's a little bit more than six months of work, we've identified like 1300 locations of kids were established, not locations at some point in time, but at the moment when we were looking for it. So we didn't know where those kids were and then we knew where these kids are. So that is really helpful when it comes to start to work on their returns. But also coming back for a second to the younger resolution and its implementation yesterday at the coalition meeting meeting, it was referenced many times by different speakers and different delegations that they also see it as a very important tool that needs to be worked on. And I think now is a good time to start looking into that as we have the political support and we have the mandate of the UN and then maybe we can take stock of that in September and see how to improve things if they wouldn't be going as smoothly as we would want.

[David Knowles]

I'll ask you about that in September.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

September, yes, please.

[David Knowles]

Final question for me. You mentioned the mediation efforts and obviously

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

they've been the main way to get kids back to Ukraine at the moment. But as you said, they're also informal and sometimes difficult to know what is going to come out of it. It's not like a set pathway where you know what you're going to get. Can you maybe explain what that experience has been like from the side of Ukraine and maybe what some of the the difficulties and pitfalls with mediation are?

[Maxim Maximov]

I think the numbers would speak best to the difficulty. There have been direct conversations between Russia and Ukraine on the return of the kids in Istanbul. 300 plus list given from Ukraine. There was an early attempt in April 2024 when the human Rights Commissioner has passed a list of if I'm not run almost 600 kids via catastrophic to the Russians as well. There have been many other attempts where lists of significant numbers have been passed to the Russians. As of today, the number of the kids that have been returned through mediation is less than 150 children. So I think the lack of the rules of the game and the sole fact that it is there is no standard operating procedures for how things would work and what needs to be happening for the kids to return. With Russia still maintaining the major decision power over this is the main blocker. The key barrier here is that it all hinges on Russians political decision making, not humanitarian. If they were guided by humanitarian considerations, then it probably would be grounded in international law and how it should be be happening. But it's not, hence the numbers that we have. One of the problems with the mediation or the challenges is that there is no strict set of rules on how it works and it's basically muddy waters with a lot of fog. And that allows Russia to control the process and to act as it wishes rather than be bound by certain rules and procedures and expectations. That complicates the work of Ukraine, Ukraine, that complicates the work of our partners. And it basically leaves Russia with all control on the outcomes and they rely on it as the seafood.

[David Knowles]

Which means when you're walking into a mediation conversation with them with a list of children, with a new list of cases, you never know whether the rules that applied in the previous one are going to apply in the new one.

[Maxim Maximov]

Absolutely. And there is also stuff that they say publicly about, you know, they say just bring us the parents who are looking for their kids and we'll get them back. That is what they say publicly and that is something that is not actually part of the reality. It doesn't work like that because when you do that, they'll find some other grounds to delay to not be responsive to find grounds where this can't be happening etc etc and also because the

[David Knowles]

cases are very complicated and very varied by the sheer fact of war itself as well.

[Maxim Maximov]

Absolutely. In it's, you know, life is a complicated thing, family relationships are complicated thing and war is another layer that makes it all even more complicated. So every case is unique and one may think of, well let's just, you know, unify them all somehow group them in certain group and then it will be much easier. You can do that, but only to an extent, because in every individual case it has its own nuances that can affect and Russia tries to play on that and they can change argument from case to case regardless of whether that argument actually stands with respect to this case. They have the kids in their hands and they have the ultimate call at the end of the day who gets released or not. That makes it an unequal game. And that's why the lack of predictable, transparent, rules based mechanism isn't allowing us to get to the scale of the returns that we may wish for.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio maps and battlefield footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe at www.YouTube.com.com Crainethelatest. There's a link in the description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the Latest on your preferred podcast app. Leave us a review as it helps others find the show and please also share it with those who may not

[David Knowles]

be aware we exist.

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

You can also get in touch directly and ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we promise we continue to read every message message even if we can't reply to you all. You can also contact us on X. You'll find our handles in the description.

[David Knowles]

As ever, we're especially interested to hear

[Podcast Producer/Host (David Knowles or Producer)]

where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for free, then two months for just pound one at www.telegram telegraph.co.uk Ukraine the latest Ukraine the latest was Today, produced by Phil Atkins in Audio and Sophie o' Sullivan in Video. The Executive Editor is Francis Dernley. The series creator is David Knowles.

[Maxim Maximov]

My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.

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