At the UN General Assembly debate on Ukraine, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba read excerpts from the diaries of three Ukrainian children and called on Russia to jointly demand that Russia immediately provide a list of children removed from Ukraine, as well as provide access to them to representatives of international human rights and monitoring missions.

"Dear delegates, the Russian full-scale invasion has deprived all 7.5 million Ukrainian children of a normal life. About two-thirds of them became internally displaced persons or left Ukraine. Russia has killed at least 494 Ukrainian children and injured 1,052 more. At least 379 children went missing during the fighting. Right now, Russia continues the mass abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children," the minister said during his speech.

He noted that at least 19,474 children have been illegally deported to date, 4,390 of them are orphans or deprived of parental care, and only 383 children have returned and reunited with their families, and tens of thousands are still waiting for help.

"We welcome the decision of the UN Secretary-General to include in the annex of his Report on Children and Armed Conflict a reference to the Russian armed forces and armed formations associated with them because of the serious crimes they committed against children in Ukraine. We must jointly demand that the Russian Federation immediately provide a list of children taken from Ukraine to Russia, as well as provide access to these children to representatives of international human rights and monitoring missions," the Foreign Minister urged.

Kuleba reiterated that Russia should release Ukrainian children and return them to their families.

"I call on all UN member states to exert maximum pressure on Russia within their national capabilities. We can force Russia to stop violations against children and return them safely if we demand it all together, with a single voice," the minister said.

The head of the ministry also read excerpts from the "real military diaries" of three Ukrainian children who survived the occupation and suffering. In particular, 8-year-old Yehor Kravtsov, who wrote a diary in Mariupol in March 2022, 13-year-old Violeta Horbacheva, who spent four months in occupied Nova Kakhovka, and Arina Pervunina, who was 11 years old at the time of the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. She was forced to hide in a basement in an occupied village.

"Arina gave me this diary and allowed me to read these private notes to you. Now you know and feel that Ukrainians have been going through almost a year and a half of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Why do these and millions of other Ukrainian children have a stolen childhood? Because Putin has an imperial tumor in his head? Because Russia does not take into account the suffering of children in order to achieve its sick political goals? I am sure that many of you in this room have children. You would never want them to go through a hell like this. No child in the world deserves this. No political goal can justify this barbarism," Kuleba said.