20,000 teddy bears highlight plight of missing children in Ukraine

20,000 teddy bears have been placed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to Ukrainian children believed to have been taken by Russia.

The U.S.-based group Razom for Ukraine and the U.S.-U.S. Ukraine Coalition installed the display to represent Ukraine, which says some 20,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus since the war began five years ago. Organizers hope Congress will help solve The United Nations calls it a crime against humanity.

Russia denies accusations of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children. Instead, Vladimir Putin claimed that the children were “rescued” from war zones.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that more than 2,100 children had been returned to their relatives by the “Bring the Children Back” UA initiative, which has been finding and repatriating Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories and Russia since 2023.

Video produced by Alex Foster, co-produced by Rebecka Pieder