Zelensky says Bring Kids Back UA has returned more than 2,100 Ukrainian children taken to Russia or Russian-held areas

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative has returned more than 2,100 Ukrainian children taken to Russia or Russian-controlled territory, including 150 since the start of 2026.

In a Telegram post, Zelensky said he had received a report on the initiative’s work from representatives Oleksandr Bevz and Maksym Maksymov. The figures are an official tally from Zelensky and Bring Kids Back UA. They were not independently matched in the same form by contemporaneous U.N. or other public tallies.

The update appears to raise the initiative’s previously cited number. Reporting on Feb. 17 quoted Zelensky as saying 2,000 children had been returned under Bring Kids Back UA.

Zelensky’s statement comes ahead of a ministerial-level meeting of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children scheduled for May 11 in Brussels. The European Union said Monday that the high-level meeting will be co-hosted by the EU, Ukraine and Canada.

The fresh figure from Kyiv tracks one measure — children Ukraine says have been returned through the presidential initiative — while a recent United Nations finding tracks another: cases independently verified by U.N. investigators as deportation or forcible transfer. The two totals are not the same metric and should not be read as directly comparable.

In March, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said it had independently verified the deportation or forcible transfer of 1,205 children from five Ukrainian regions. The commission said the deportation or forcible transfer and enforced disappearances of children “constitute crimes against humanity.”

That finding marked a significant international legal development in the issue of Ukrainian children taken during the war. Zelensky pointed to the U.N. conclusion in his Tuesday update as Ukraine prepared for the Brussels meeting.

The May 11 gathering is set to bring together ministers in the coalition focused on returning Ukrainian children. The EU announcement confirmed the date and the three co-hosts but did not, in the material cited by Zelensky, outline specific new measures.

Bring Kids Back UA is a presidential initiative launched by Zelensky to locate, return and reintegrate Ukrainian children taken during the war.