The Council of Europe has been closely involved with Ukraine since Russia unleashed armed aggression against the country in February 2022, and was a stakeholder in the “Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025” held in Rome on 10 and 11 July.
The Secretary General, Alain Berset, and the Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, took part, as did members of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities led by their President, Marc Cools, and Carlo Monticelli, Governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank.
Also present was Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir, the Secretary General’s Special Envoy on the situation of children in Ukraine, an issue to which the Council of Europe devoted a high-level conference on 9 July.
Mariana Betsa, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister, said that at least 20,000 Ukrainian children had been abducted by Russia since 2022, and that this systematic practice was part of the “genocidal war against Ukraine”.
So far, it has only been possible to return 1,400 children.
For Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir, Russia “aims to destroy Ukraine’s identity and future”.
At the opening of the Conference, the Secretary General, Alain Berset, announced that the next step of the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, created under the aegis of the Council of Europe, will be to launch a new category to document harm suffered by children, including their forcible transfer or deportation.
The Secretary General also pointed out that the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine, entitled ‘Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction’ includes building capacity in education, child protection, and trauma-informed services.
He also stressed the importance of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression set up by the Council of Europe and Ukraine last June, and the essential role that justice must play in ensuring that war criminals have nowhere to hide. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)