PGO urges U.S. Congress to put pressure on Russia to return Ukrainian children home

He said this on Wednesday during a hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We need a powerful, united pressure on the Russian leadership to bring Ukrainian children home," he said.

He emphasized that it would be easy for Russia to do so if they have such a desire.

"There are a number of international legislative acts that can be used to return children through third countries, through international organizations to their families and to their country," Kostin said.

According to him, the Prosecutor General's Office has information that up to 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported, and only a small part of them have returned home. He noted that the main difficulty is not to determine their number, but to find out where they are.

"I always ask all the leaders I meet to raise this issue on a daily basis, using all their influence at the international level, so that the Russians return our children home," he added.

As Ukrinform previously reported, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin is on a visit to the United States, where he is scheduled to meet with representatives of the U.S. administration and Congress.