First lady Melania Trump reportedly penned a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, raising the plight of children in Ukraine and Russia shattered by the war.
The personal letter was given to Mr. Putin by President Trump during the summit in Alaska on Friday, a White House official confirmed to The Washington Times.
Reuters was the first to report the letter.
The extended contents of the letter are unknown, except that it spoke of abducted children amid the war.
The Washington Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
There have been over 19,000 reports of unlawful deportations and forced transfers of Ukrainian children, according to Bring Kids Back UA, a Ukrainian humanitarian program created in 2023.
Russia has said the children were taken for humanitarian reasons.
Earlier this month, 40 countries, alongside the Council of Europe and the European Union, joined together to call on Russia to return Ukrainian children.
“The suffering of children is one of the most unbearable tragedies of this war,” Kaja Kallas, high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice president of the European Commission, said.
She said Russia’s “forced deportation of nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children is a blatant violation of international law.”
The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mr. Putin’s arrest in March 2023 for alleged war crimes involving the abduction of children. The warrant also names Maria Lvova-Belova, appointed by Mr. Putin as Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights.
The court said the two are “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which helps locate and bring back Ukrainian children, has determined “with high confidence” that Russia has “engaged in the systematic, intentional, and widespread coerced adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine.”
After the Trump administration cut funding for Yale’s lab, it planned to close by July. The university said donor contributions came in to keep it running until at least October.
The Slovenian-born first lady has been passionate about the plight of children during her time as first lady in Mr. Trump’s first and second terms.
She has discussed the war with her husband, reminding him of the brutality of the constant fighting.
“I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit,’” Mr. Trump told reporters last month.
