Behind closed doors with Trump and European leaders on Monday, more mundane documents seemed to strike a chord. Across a long wood table, Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation showed Trump a photo and birth certificate of a Ukrainian toddler who was only a few months old when the war began in 2022 and was taken by Russian forces from a children’s home in Kherson, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Then they showed Trump a Russian birth certificate for the same child, with a new name, that listed her birthplace near Moscow after she was removed to Russia and adopted by a Kremlin-linked politician, the person said.
Ukrainian officials say the child was one of thousands that they say have been taken to Russia since the invasion, many with their names and identities rewritten. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t independently verify the allegations about the child.
Trump appeared to be moved by the child’s story, according to officials present. “It was emotionally significant for the American President to see a personal human fate…not only the facts and figures,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was in the room, told reporters after the meeting.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky handed over a letter from his wife to President Trump’s wife during the men’s Oval Office meeting this week.
In front of the cameras that day, Zelensky also presented Trump with a letter from his wife, Olena Zelenska, to first lady Melania Trump, thanking her for pressing President Vladimir Putin to save the lives of thousands of children with “a stroke of the pen.”
The twin appeals were the culmination of a monthslong lobbying campaign by Ukrainian and European officials, joined by evangelical Christian organizations, to bring the plight of the missing children to the attention of senior American officials and make it a demand in peace negotiations.
There are signs it has broken through. “The children are devastated,” Trump told Fox News the day after the meeting. “They’re taken away from their homes.” That evening, he posted on Truth Social, expressing hope to “bring them home to their families.” Trump allies in Congress have also vowed to take up the issue.
It remains to be seen whether it will have a lasting effect on Trump’s view of the war or prompt him to bring more pressure on Russia. While Trump has at times been swayed by powerful images or personal stories—as when photos of Syrian children killed in a 2017 chemical attack prompted U.S. missile strikes—his attention has just as often shifted as new priorities arise.
A White House spokeswoman said Trump has a “humanitarian heart” and is working to end the war because he wants the suffering to stop.
Ukraine says it has reports of 20,000 missing children, many of whom were taken from orphanages and schools in occupied Ukraine when Russia withdrew its forces from those areas. The United Nations says it hasn’t independently verified Ukraine’s figure.
Ukrainian officials say thousands of children have been taken to Russia since the invasion, many with their names and identities rewritten.Under international law, the forcible transfer of children from one group to another can constitute genocide under certain conditions.
Russia has acknowledged transferring some children, saying it did so to remove them from harm’s way. Moscow has declared that occupied parts of Ukraine are Russian territory, and Putin has said Ukrainians and Russians are one people.
Officials close to Putin say Ukraine distorts the issue. “There are no children who were forcibly transferred or deported by us from Ukraine,” said senior Putin adviser Vladimir Medinsky. “There are only children saved under fire.” Some Russian officials have expressed pride about adopting children transferred from parts of Ukraine.
Under international law, the forcible transfer of children from one group to another constitutes genocide if conducted with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Ukraine has long pushed for this issue to be at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the war, but only in recent months has it managed to break through to the Trump administration and conservative figures close to the U.S. president.
A key moment came on March 11, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke publicly about Ukraine’s desire to get the children back after meeting with Ukrainian envoys in Saudi Arabia. The Ukrainians had pressed the Americans to include the issue on their list of demands with the Russians.
A few days later, it became public that funding for a U.S.-based program that tracked missing Ukrainian children had been halted as part of the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid. U.S. lawmakers pressed Rubio for answers, arguing the database was critical for returning the children to their homes.
Ukraine and its supporters in Congress tried to use the setback as an opportunity to lobby the administration on the issue. Evangelical groups, some of them with close ties to Trump allies, rallied to renew their efforts to lobby the White House on the issue, according to several organizers.
That same week, Trump first raised the issue with Zelensky in a call on March 19, promising to work closely with Ukraine to make sure the children were returned home.
“Once MAGA Republicans learn about Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian kids, support for Ukraine increases by more than 20 points,” said Melinda Haring of Razom, one of the nongovernment organizations involved in lobbying for Ukraine in Washington. “It’s a really potent issue.”
In April, a group of evangelical organizations sent a letter to Trump and Rubio urging them to make the issue a central demand in negotiations to end the war. Among them was the Family Research Council, a conservative group with strong ties to Trump’s inner circle that has hosted the president at its national summit several times.
Ukrainian families evacuated from the Dnipropetrovsk region during a Russian advance in June.Children’s handprints decorate the wall of the culture center in the front-line village of Kalynove in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Calling the transfer of Ukrainian children “a grave moral and legal atrocity” in violation of international law, they cited Bible verses while urging the U.S. president to make their return a key condition in any negotiations. A few days later, groups that signed the letter met with key members of the Trump administration’s staff on Ukraine.
“We’ve pushed for this to be front and center—not just something that would be ‘nice if it got done,’ but a condition in peace negotiations,” said Chelsea Sobolik of Christian nonprofit World Relief, who led the outreach to the White House.
The appeal seemed to gain traction. Two months later, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, introduced a resolution in Congress calling for the return of abducted Ukrainian children before completing any peace agreement.
In a rare act of public appeal to a foreign leader, Melania Trump wrote her letter to Putin, appealing to him to protect the innocence of children. “Mr. Putin, you can single-handedly restore their melodic laughter,” she wrote in the letter, which was shared by Trump on Truth Social. “It is time.”
The first lady’s office declined to comment on what prompted her letter. Although she didn’t specifically mention Ukrainian children or the war, Ukrainians quickly seized on it as an opening, prompting Olena Zelenska’s response that was presented by Zelensky at the White House meeting.
In a Truth Social post, Trump later said that the missing children were “a big subject with my wife, Melania.”
Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com
