A Ukrainian official testified this week that Russian forces forcibly sent several abducted Ukrainian children to North Korea and other countries.

In a written statement to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, Kateryna Rashevska told lawmakers on Wednesday that Russian forces have abducted Ukrainian children and moved them to camps in Russia and Belarus, and in at least two cases, to North Korea.

"If we wish to create a lasting peace, we must begin with the children. It is in the fundamental interest of the United States to support the Ukrainian people's fight for the best future of our children, because while serving their best interests today we are serving the best interests of all humanity," Rashevska said.

"[Twelve]-year-old Misha from the occupied Donetsk region and 16-year-old Liza from occupied Simferopol (in Crimea) were sent to Songdowon camp in North Korea, 9,000 km from home," Rashevska told the committee.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in early 2022, Pyongyang has supported Moscow by supplying weapons and deploying troops.

Rashevska cited documentation from the Regional Center for Human Rights that she said shows 165 re-education camps where Ukrainian children are "militarized and Russified."

"Children there were taught to ‘destroy Japanese militarists' and met Korean veterans who, in 1968, attacked the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, killing and wounding nine American servicemen," she added.

The testimony came a day before first lady Melania Trump announced that seven Ukrainian children had been reunited with their families through her reunification program. However, the figures discussed at the hearing suggested a far larger scope of alleged abductions.

Kyiv has brought back around 1,800 children out of more than 19,500 it says were abducted by Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Russia's children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, has previously said Russia "accepted" 700,000 Ukrainian children between February 2022 and July 2023.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, testified during the same hearing that research indicates at least 35,000 Ukrainian children ages 8 months to 17 years are currently in Russian custody, either temporarily or permanently.

"There, they faced so-called ‘patriotic re-education' that included being prohibited from speaking Ukrainian and being brainwashed with an alternate version of history in which the nation of Ukraine and its culture did not exist," Raymond said.

In his testimony, Raymond said the repatriation of all Ukrainian children taken by Russia should be a prerequisite for any potential negotiated resolution to the conflict.

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