Episode 45: Not Since Nuremberg: Russia’s Theft and Transfer of Ukrainian Children

Today, host Shawn Rostker speaks with Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, about his lab’s groundbreaking report documenting Russia’s systematic effort to steal and harbor at least 6,000 Ukrainian children throughout the war. They discuss Russia’s network of over 40 facilities, stretching from Crimea to Siberia, in which children are subjected to political indoctrination, cultural reeducation, and in some cases military training, and identify the state levers that enable it. The plight of the children, as well as the parents desperate to reunite with them, is told in vivid detail through documented instances of war crimes.Russia’s theft of Ukraine’s children represents the largest such campaign since the Nazi kidnappings of Jewish children during WWII that became the first prosecutions at Nuremberg. Executive Director Raymond explains the legal framework that implicates Russia in these war crimes and explains what must come next to identify and return the thousands of Ukrainian children currently being held by Russia.

About the Guest

Nathaniel A. Raymond is Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and a Lecturer in the Department of the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases (EMD) at YSPH. He was formerly a Lecturer of Global Affairs at the Jackson School for Global Affairs from 2018 – 2022. His research interests focus on the health implications of forced displacement; methodologies for the assessment of large-scale disasters, including pandemics; and the human rights and human security implications of information communication technologies (ICTs) for vulnerable populations, particularly in the context of armed conflict.

Previously, he was the founding Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health from 2012 – 2018. From 2010 to 2012, he was Director of Operations for the George Clooney-founded Satellite Sentinel Project at HHI, which utilized high resolution satellite imagery to detect and document attacks on civilians in Sudan and South Sudan. Raymond was Director of the Campaign Against Torture at Physicians for Human Rights from 2008 – 2010, leading investigations into the role of US health professionals in the Bush Administration’s “enhanced” interrogation program.

Raymond served as a humanitarian aid worker with Oxfam America and was deployed to Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and the US Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Raymond has formally advised multiple UN, governmental, and non-governmental agencies, including the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in South Sudan, the UN High Commission for Refugees, Save the Children, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Association of South East Asian Nations, the US Naval War College’s Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response program, and others. His work has appeared in Nature, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, Annals of General Psychiatry, Disasters, and other peer-reviewed publications.

Views expressed are personal and do not represent the views of GSSR or any other entity.