As a child, Matviy Chos could see the jaws of the Russian war machine snapping ahead of him. Adults waxed patriotic to him about the glory of feeding yourself to it, as soon as you’re able, to spite the enemy in Ukraine.
“One military person came to our school,” the now 19-year-old said in Toronto Monday through a translator. “We were gathered from eight years to 16. He would tell us about the war, freshly off the front-line where he murdered people. If you are a real man, at 18, you too will go to kill people, especially Ukrainians, who are not a nation and who are not people.”
On Monday, Chos spoke at the two-day Pathways to Peace conference in Toronto with his wife of three weeks, Dariia Tomashova, 18, who also just escaped occupied Crimea, about the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who aren’t as fortunate as them.
Canadian and international authorities say there is a crisis of unlawful deportation, indoctrination and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children into Russian-occupied territory. A report in March by the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine called these acts by Russia crimes against humanity.
Ukraine estimated that more than 20,000 of its children have been moved from their birthplaces and into Russia or Russian territory. Many have been separated from their parents and placed into Russian state or foster care, officials believe, where some have been physically and sexually abused.
The circumstances of Chos’ birth helped inoculate him against the propaganda, he said. He is from the city of Yevpatoria in the Crimean peninsula, which is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine but was seized by Russia in 2014, when he was six years old. He said he doesn’t remember how Russian forces took over the territory. But he knows that he is a person with a homeland, in spite of what he was raised to believe under occupation.
Growing up, he said he underwent “constant military training.” This, he said, included field trips to military bases and classroom weapons drills.
Six months ago, Chos was at university in Moscow, hoping an education would spare him from the front lines. He was able to escape into unoccupied Ukraine with the help of non-profit humanitarian organization Save Ukraine, which receives funding from the Canadian government.
It was a risky procedure, he said, requiring reams of documentation and a “dangerous” trip through Belarus, during which he said he could have been apprehended and conscripted at any time.
At the conference, which was jointly hosted with Ukraine and Norway, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced $863,000 in new funding for groups including Save Ukraine. With this, Canada has now committed a total of $7 million to helping abducted children and their families.
Canada is also offering assistance in the form of artificial intelligence technology, Anand said, which can trace missing Ukrainian children, some of whom have had their names changed as part of Russia’s “systematic effort to separate Ukrainian children from Ukraine.” Officials say 2,573 Ukrainian children have been returned to date. Qatar has been successful in negotiating the release of some of them.
“The testimony that we have heard over the past two days underscores the intense and unacceptable suffering that we know exists at Russia’s hands,” said Anand in her concluding remarks on Tuesday. “We have pledged to find Ukrainians who have been taken from their homes. We have pledged to bring them back, knowing that it can be dangerous, complex, difficult, but above all, necessary.”
Anand spoke to a room in the Exhibition Place Automotive Building full of dignitaries from 73 countries and 10 international organizations, including multiple UN high commissions and the European Union.
“Accountability and the safe return of every child must remain at the centre of our common response,” said the Polish delegate, Arletta Brzozowska. “Poland stands ready to contribute to these efforts.”
Ukrainian Canadian Congress president Alexandra Chyczij was also in attendance Tuesday. She told reporters she was grateful for Canada’s support, which she said has grown under Prime Minster Mark Carney. Ottawa and Kyiv are now in talks to strike a deal ensuring Canada’s political, military and economic aid to the embattled nation continue for the next century.
Chyczij cautioned, however, that efforts to bring these stolen children home might be dashed if Russia is allowed to continue its bombardment of Ukraine. Russia hammered Kyiv with ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones this month, which are too fast for Ukraine to intercept. These attacks destroyed, among other things, Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, killing at least one person in the process. The president of the academy called the attack an act of terrorism.
“We need to bring these children and POWs and civilians home to something,” said Chyczij. “If the wanton bombing and destruction of Ukraine isn’t stopped, they will have no home to return to.”
