FRONTLINE Chronicles the Search for Ukraine’s Missing Children

Academy Award®-Winning Documentary Series Continues Its Coverage of Ukraine War with ‘Children of Ukraine’

Children of Ukraine Premieres Tues., April 16, 2024 7/6c: pbs.org/frontline, PBS App 10/9c: PBS stations (check local listings), YouTube & the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel www.facebook.com/frontline | X (formerly Twitter): @frontlinepbs Instagram: @frontlinepbs | YouTube: youtube.com/frontline

 Since the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian children have been taken and held in Russian-controlled territory. Children of Ukraine, a new FRONTLINE documentary, tells the story of Ukrainian teenagers who escaped, and of Ukrainian families and investigators trying to track down missing children and collect evidence of alleged abductions.

Premiering on PBS stations and streaming platforms on Tues., April 16, Children of Ukraine explores how, last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for the alleged war crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine. The Kremlin dismissed the charges as “outrageous,” and Russia has said it’s been relocating Ukrainian children to ensure their safety and to provide medical care and education.

Directed and produced by BAFTA-award winning journalist Paul Kenyon, Children of Ukraine follows investigators with the International Partnership for Human Rights as they travel through Ukraine and collect accounts that tell a different story — including multiple cases in which Ukrainian teenagers held in Russian-controlled territory say they were mistreated and subjected to Russian propaganda.

“The main purpose is to erase our national identity by this ideological, political, cultural and sometimes even military re-education,” Ukrainian investigator Anna Lishchynska, who works for the IPHR, says in the documentary.

“You realize that you can be killed on any day,” one teenager, Vlad, says in the film of his time being held in Russian-controlled territory. “You can be taken away. The most frightening thing, probably, is to die there.”

With more than 19,000 children still being held illegally by Russia, according to Ukrainian authorities, Children of Ukraine is a powerful look at a little-known dimension of the Ukraine war.

“We’re still hoping to bring them back home,” Lishchynska says. “They’re still our children.”

Children of Ukraine continues FRONTLINE’s extensive and award-winning coverage of the ongoing conflict. The PBS investigative series produced at GBH in Boston won its first-ever Oscar at the Academy Awards this year for 20 Days in Mariupol, an on-the-ground documentary with The Associated Press chronicling the war’s human toll.

Watch Children of Ukraine in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting April 16, 2024, at 7/6c. The documentary will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. The documentary is distributed internationally by PBS International. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to Children of Ukraine.

Credits Children of Ukraine is a Basement Films production for GBH/FRONTLINE in association with Channel 4. The director and producer is Paul Kenyon. The producer is Maxim Tucker. The senior producer is Dan Edge. The executive producer of Basement Films is Ben de Pear. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including  106 Emmy Awards and 31 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.

Press Contact Anne Husted | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org | 6173005312