In a private, unannounced visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, Sept. 30, Britain’s Princess Anne made a solemn visit to the Ukrainian capital to draw attention to the plight of children impacted by Russia’s invasion, officials said.
The trip, which Buckingham Palace said was intended to highlight “the traumatic experiences of children living on the front line,” was kept secret until after it concluded for security reasons.
The Princess Royal, the only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska during her stay. Together they commemorated children killed in the conflict, spoke with teenagers who had been forcibly deported to Russia and later returned, and visited sites symbolizing the cost of war.
The visit came in the shadow of fresh violence: it took place only days after a Russian aerial bombardment of Kyiv that killed civilians, including a 12-year-old girl, and wounded dozens more.
Standing alongside Zelenska at the memorial for children killed in the war, the 75-year-old princess recalled that her own daughter, Zara Tindall, once had the same type of teddy bear placed there in tribute.
She told Zelenska: “That was one that my daughter had.”
Zelenska also laid a stuffed animal in remembrance.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, civilians – and children in particular – have borne a disproportionate share of the conflict’s cost. Memorials, like the one Princess Anne visited, now bear the names and ages of hundreds of youngsters killed in attacks across the country.
“Already 657 children’s lives have been cut short in Ukraine by Russian occupiers,” Zelenska said.
“We remember and mourn every loss. And we will forgive none.”
Zelenska added that she, Princess Anne, and Daria Herasymchuk, the presidential advisor on children’s rights, visited the “Martyrology” memorial, where diplomats, officials, and families regularly gather to honor the youngest victims.
“Our message is clear,” Zelenska said. “These murders cannot be forgotten if the world still wants to be considered civilized and humane. Ukraine will do everything possible to ensure that those who ordered and carried out these crimes are punished.”
Last week, Kyiv Post reported that Russian occupation authorities have forcibly placed 48 Ukrainian children in the occupied Donetsk region in psychiatric institutions under accusations of “extremism.”
According to data from the self-proclaimed “DNR” [Donetsk People’s Republic], 161 minors have faced criminal charges, with 48 of them sent to forced psychiatric treatment. Others have been subjected to administrative penalties, including fines.
The so-called “psychiatric therapy” involves compulsory confinement in mental health institutions, a practice widely condemned as a form of punishment and coercion. This method echoes Soviet-era abuses, when dissidents and activists were declared mentally ill and confined to psychiatric hospitals as a way to silence opposition.
More than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred or deported by the Russian authorities to Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine.
As of August 2025, over 1.6 million Ukrainian children remain under Moscow’s control – either in occupied territories or deported to Russia.
They face forced Russification, militarization, and ideological indoctrination – war crimes, which have led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Putin.
Part of the indoctrination process involves military-oriented youth summer camps, where Ukrainian youth have been seen participating in war game simulations and swearing allegiance to Moscow.
Previously, the Kremlin claimed that it was “protecting vulnerable children from the war zone.”
As per Ukraine’s “Bring Kids Back UA” initiative, “With tactics like forcibly taking children from orphanages, killing parents, splitting families during filtration processes, creating unbearable living conditions in occupied areas, and brazenly kidnapping children from their homes and schools, it’s more than a tragedy; it’s a deliberate attack on Ukraine’s future.”
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that Russia has caused suffering to millions of Ukrainian children and violated their rights since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Moscow’s indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine have also led to thousands of children’s deaths.