This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, dear friends, dear colleagues.

Today my goal and mission is to ring an alarm bell.

The world cannot stay silent while Russia steals Ukrainian children, steals their childhood. This event should wake everyone up.

The European Union, Canada, are the partners present today, and this is not about speeches. This is about returning more children.

Everyone needs to ask what has been done to achieve this goal.

And everyone needs to have a concrete set of duties.

I appreciate the European Union's practical assistance in tracing, returning and recovering our children.

Special gratitude to Canada for being a strong co-chair of this coalition.

What Russia is doing to Ukrainian children is evil. This is not an accident of war. This is not collateral damage.

This is a deliberate Russian policy aimed at destroying Ukrainian identity.

Children are forced to forget who they are, where they come from, and even their own language.

This is Russian social engineering, and we saw this in the darkest past. And we know what horror it brings.

The fact that this is happening is a verdict to international mechanism that should have prevented such crimes. They failed.

No other issue demonstrates it better than the issue of stolen Ukrainian children.

Mechanisms need to be updated, new tools need to be invented, and enforcement needs to be real. We will be discussing this today.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants and the UN Commission called these deportations a crime against humanity.

But these steps are not enough,

and I will urge additional and very specific sanctions to increase pressure on Moscow and every Russian involved in this state-led children abduction.

I welcome today's EU Foreign Affairs Council decision to impose new EU sanctions against those responsible for crimes against Ukrainian children.

I also thank the UK and Canada for new sanctions.

Today I want to see our coalition moving from strong statements to stronger action.

In December we managed to secure a UN General Assembly resolution.

Today I want us to work on the strategy for its implementation because this is not about concerns, it's about returns.

More than 2000 Ukrainian children have already been returned, but thousands are still waiting, and time matters enormously.

Every additional month means more propaganda, more pressure and more attempts to erase their children's identities. This is why accountability matters.

Crimes against children must never become normal, and they must never go unpunished.

Today's meeting shows that this coalition is growing.

More and more countries understand that protecting children is not only Ukraine's issue,

it's a moral responsibility of the entire international community.

Ukrainian children are not a matter for negotiation or compromise. Their return is unconditional.

A real, just peace will only come when every child returns home.

This is what today's meeting is about. Thank you.