Kateryna Rashevska: “Ukraine should demand not only the return of children, but also the punishment of perpetrators”

The war for Ukrainian children continues not only at the frontline, but also in international institutions. Recently, the United States has cut off funding for the Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory (YHRL), which collected information, among other things, on Ukrainian children deported by Russia.

Given that behind every number is the fate of a child, what does this mean for Ukraine? How did the Russians create a system of abduction, re-education and militarization of Ukrainian children? Why should there be more international sanctions against the institutions and officials responsible for these crimes in Russia? What should Ukraine do to make the return of children systematic, and what requirements should be included in a peace agreement? Kateryna Rashevska, an expert of the Regional Center for Human Rights, shares her opinion about all of these aspects with ZN.UA.

— Ms. Kateryna, the funding for the Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory's program on Ukrainian children deported by Russia, for which the US State Department allocated $26 million, has been suspended. The information seems to have not been deleted. But there are questions about its future.

— To begin with, let's figure out what this Yale Humanitarian Laboratory (HRL) is. Because the publicly available information gives the impression that the sole focus of its activities was Ukrainian children, and all 26 million dollars were spent on these efforts only.

In fact, experts have documented and analyzed a significant number of other crimes committed by Russians and violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine. Some of their reports refer to practices that have been used 2014. Experts have documented filtration camps, forced conferment of Russian citizenship, etc. There is a report on deportation, forced displacement and re-education camps to which Ukrainian children were sent. The other, known as the report on the adoption of Ukrainian children, concerns the forced transfer of our children to Russian families, and it generated a lot of publicity in December. However, it was not always about adoption, but more often about the establishment of illegal guardianship.

The HRL also had a significant advocacy and communication component. Experts participated in meetings of the UN Security Council, various conferences, events and lectures. The Laboratory's reports were submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for bringing the perpetrators to account. Certain information was also passed on to the Ukrainian authorities. But here I want to emphasize that this was a bilateral process. The Ukrainian authorities also provided certain information for investigation that was not sensitive or classified. Ukrainian non-governmental organizations, in particular the Regional Center for Human Rights and Almenda, also provided data. Sometimes even without reference to this information in the reports.

— So what happened to the database?

— Well, the December 2024 report of the HRL was accompanied by an information campaign that more than 300 children who were listed in the Russian federal database as deprived of parental care had been identified and that this information would be shared to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children and bring responsible to justice. As far as I know, our competent authorities have not received some information. Now, given the restrictions on access to the database for the laboratory's experts, it is not known whether we will receive this information from them. Although the United States is the manager of this information, the relevant competent government institutions. Therefore, in order to obtain this information, the state of Ukraine can turn to a partner state that is a member of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children.

I believe State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce who says that the databases were not deleted from servers in the United States, so we can argue that a disaster did not happen. But I want to bring us back to a harsh reality: identification is not the only problem in the return of Ukrainian children. The biggest problem is the Russian Federation and its many cynical obstacles along the way.

In November 2024, the Russian Federation amended its law on guardianship and custody. Now, Ukrainian legal representatives who are not biological relatives of the child cannot travel to Russian-controlled territories or to Russia and pick up a Ukrainian child with Ukrainian documents translated into Russian and notarized. This is prohibited because Ukraine is a country where gender reassignment can be done medically.

This is a real problem. Because of this, we cannot return our young children, for example, from the Kherson Regional Orphanage or from the Oleshky Orphanage. These are children who could be returned only in the way I have described — by preparing documents for a legal representative who will accompany the children to the Ukrainian-controlled territory. Now the procedure is very complicated.

— How realistic is the figure of 35,000 children voiced by the Yale HRL?

— It raises questions. I am not saying that the Russians deported fewer children. But earlier, in public statements, the HRL experts talked about 19,546 children. While it is true that in some interviews, Executive Director Nathaniel Raymond mentioned the figure of more than 30,000 children. But the calculations were as follows: 19,546 children are from the list of Ukraine (that is, we have this information) and the other 10–12,000 are children who have been in Russian re-education camps. The latter figure raises questions.

Our organization has been documenting the re-education camps for two and a half years, every case of child removal that is publicly available. And I can confidently say that the vast majority of children return. The goal of the Russians is to politicize children, brainwash them, militarize them, but not to detain them, as it was in 2022 and early 2023.

— A letter dated March 19 and addressed to Mark Rubio and Scott Bessent, signed by 17 congressmen, refers to satellite images and biometric data that helped track individuals and their locations. Who had access to this list and what information was on it?

— Only the HRL experts can answer these questions. But I have read in explanations that they directly cooperated with American intelligence agencies. They shared satellite images and cell information with them. Some Ukrainian children had Ukrainian phone numbers, so it was possible to track their physical location. It was also possible to identify the child thanks to intelligence data.

We have to understand that in today's information society it is difficult to hide a child. The new "legal representatives" are Russian guardians, and some children have social media accounts, which also helps with identification. Besides, there is software that allows you to identify a person by a photo. So it could have been a number of different mechanisms, the use of which was possible, in particular, thanks to cooperation with the CIA. Interestingly, however, now the State Department is not only disclaiming responsibility, but is saying that it is not the manager of this database and did not actually participate in this cooperation.

At the same time, since our organization has had meetings with representatives of the US State Department, I know that they are primarily responsible for the international component, i.e. participation in the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. And also, at one time, for cooperation with the ICC and other groups that investigated these crimes, which was unprecedented and extremely important, but has probably been already terminated.

— On the same day that the funding for the Yale HRL was cut, I saw information that the State Department had stopped the transfer of evidence of Russian crimes.

— Yes, the news was about cooperation with the International Center for the Investigation of Crimes of Aggression. The deportation of Ukrainian children is not a crime of aggression. Today, the ICC classifies it as a war crime. If we receive information about 35,000 deported children, the criterion of large scale will be met, in which case we can try to qualify it as a crime against humanity.

As for cooperation with the ICC, it was terminated as soon as Trump entered the Oval Office and signed a decree imposing sanctions on ICC representatives. This, in particular, probably stopped the transfer of evidence to the United States regarding the investigation of crimes against Ukrainian children. Will the US continue to collect such evidence? If they have stopped funding certain institutions that documented and analyzed these crimes, then perhaps they no longer believe it is part of their national interest. But only the US government representative can comment on this in a proper manner.

As far as I can judge, they have shifted their focus a bit. The main priority is to find ways to achieve a peaceful settlement and a ceasefire. However, we realize that without the return of all deported Ukrainian children, there can be no peace. Just as no peace is possible without ensuring justice, guarantees of non-recurrence and proper preservation of the truth about these events. Unfortunately, we see an aspiration to simply stop shooting and continue talking about something.

— How will the freezing of the Yale HRL programs and the termination of cooperation with the ICC affect the search for and return of Ukrainian children?

— Obviously, it is going to make itself felt. At the same time, I would not make such a huge link to governmental cooperation as the Yale HRL had. The institution can try to attract grants from other actors, particularly other members of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. If they have received information from US intelligence agencies and know how to work with and store it, they can establish such cooperation with other intelligence agencies. When Ukraine was denied access to American intelligence data for a certain period of time, we received data from other satellites. The same can happen here.

If the Yale HRL does not find an alternative, then we can try to find an alternative to this institution. I don't want to underestimate the authority, influence and quality of everything they have done. This is the highest level. But let's remember that we have a working group called Bring Kids Back UA, which includes international experts from academia, professionals and people who have been to international criminal tribunals. They can prepare the same analytical materials and document Russian crimes against Ukrainian children. Not to mention the efforts of Ukrainian non-governmental organizations that are bringing our children back. I am confident that the Ukrainian Child Rights Network (which today also includes Save Ukraine) will be able to at least maintain the current pace of returning Ukrainian children.

— What is the situation with statistics on deported Ukrainian children? Who collects it and how? What figures can we give?

— Unfortunately, the figure of 19,546 children has not changed for almost two years. Institutional changes have taken place in Ukraine: the Ministry of Reintegration was disbanded, and now the Ministry of Justice is in charge of the register of deported and forcibly displaced children. The latter has been promising for a long time that it will revise the register, verify and update the data. Currently, the work is ongoing. That is why 19,546 is the figure we are still working with. And so it seems that for two years the Russians have not deported anyone, which is not true.

The fact is that the deportation scenario has now changed. Whereas at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Russians hid behind the need to evacuate children for security reasons, then began to take them to re-education camps, from which they did not return (this also had signs of deportation and forced displacement), now, unfortunately, this is a standard Crimean scenario. Russian foster parents come to the occupied territories of Ukraine, establish illegal custody of children under Russian law, and take them to their homes in the Russian Federation.

We recorded cases of such deportations even in mid-2024 and I am sure we will continue to do so in 2025. Therefore, as long as Ukrainian children, especially status children — orphans and those deprived of parental care — are under Russian control, deportation processes will continue. The numbers may not be as large, but behind each one is a child who will need to be returned and we will try to find either his or her biological relatives or legal representatives.

— What exactly is meant when we talk about the deportation of children? How does this differ from Russian narratives?

— In fact, this refutes some Russian narratives. For example, they said that in Ukraine children were in shelters, and we are so nice, all our children will be in Russian families. I don't believe the figure of 380 Ukrainian children in Russian families, which they themselves cite. It is too low and was announced as of October 2022, so it is clearly not the final number: in mid-2024, we were already recording new cases. Nevertheless, most Ukrainian children under Russian control are in orphanages, not in families. This is the cruel truth. Some children continue to wait for their relatives to come from Ukraine.

Earlier this year, I saw a story in the Russian media about two Ukrainian children: a 7-year-old boy from Mariupol whose parents were killed while shielding him from a rocket, and a 13-year-old girl forcibly displaced from Kupiansk who is waiting for her relatives from Ukraine to come to get her. It is interesting that in this propaganda story, Russian heads of orphanages tell the children stay with us for now, because there is a war in Ukraine. Three years have passed, and the children continue to wait for someone to come for them. After watching this story, I contacted the competent authorities of Ukraine to ask whether the Russians had received any information about these children in order to find their relatives. There has been no such request. That is, the Russians are not making any efforts to facilitate the return of the children.

— Which countries are helping to return Ukrainian children? What is Qatar doing for us, for example?

— This is an interesting question. For a long time, no one understood what Qatar was doing. The information came exclusively from the Russians, from Maria Lvova-Belova.

There are a few intermediary states that help, such as the Vatican, Qatar and the Republic of South Africa (I am not aware of any cases where it has actually facilitated the return of children). There is the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, which includes 41 states and the European Union. This Coalition also has observer states and organizations.

As regards the role of Qatar, this state did facilitate the return of the largest number of children. However, Ukraine does not categorize which children were returned by Qatar and which by non-governmental organizations. Maria Lvova-Belova insists that 98 children were returned thanks to Qatar.

To mark the anniversary of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, a statement was issued stating that in 2024 alone, 600 children were returned from deportation and forced displacement, but the vast majority of these children were under occupation and were taken out of Russian control. The role of the Coalition should not be underestimated. Firstly, they are major donors who provide funds to our non-governmental organizations and governmental institutions in return for which they organize the processes of return, rehabilitation and reintegration of children. Secondly, they have advocacy and communication levers.

So, to summarize: 600 children were returned in 2024 alone thanks to the Coalition and about 100 thanks to the efforts of Qatar. As for the Vatican, it usually acted in very difficult cases when the Russians detained children at the border several times, did not release them and refused to recognize that the children were under their control. One of these cases was that of Bohdan Yermokhin, who was returned to Ukraine in November 2023 thanks to both Ukrainian NGOs and the Vatican’s assistance.

Russia insists that it is passing some information to Ukraine through Qatar. Qatar also finances some of the operations. I have not been able to get confirmation from our competent authorities, but we have to understand that the process organized through Qatar is bilateral. That is, we also return children with Russian citizenship who cannot return to their relatives in Russia through Qatar. Certain effort is also required to monitor the process and guarantee that all the children promised to be returned will end up in Ukraine. Qatar also organized reintegration activities, for example, some children underwent rehabilitation. So without Qatar, it would have been much harder.

However, Russia does not agree to anything without any particular benefit and tries to use the mechanism of returning children through Qatar exclusively in its own interests. In particular, quite often after every next case of return, one can come across a publication by Maria Lvova-Belova, claiming that, as before, we are cooperating to reunite families, no one has been deported. But this is manipulation.

However, the main priority for Ukraine today is the return of children. So let the Russians manipulate. Another issue is that they very rarely return truly deported, forcibly displaced children because they can testify about this international crime in the International Criminal Court.

— Do you know how many children we have been able to bring back since 2022?

— The most up-to-date information is on the Bring Kids Back website. 1,243 children. These are deported, forcibly displaced and children returned from occupation territories. The state and Ukrainian non-governmental organizations agree that it is also necessary to take children out of the occupation. So many violations have taken place there! Sometimes in relation to deported children we record only deportation, and four additional violations for children leaving the occupation. We work with children and prepare complaints on their behalf to the UN Human Rights Committee.

— How do our children return to Ukraine? What happens to them in Russia?

— It depends on each individual case. Most of them come back from the occupation traumatized. It's just that this trauma can show itself in different ways. Some are very much withdrawn into themselves. Many children who were school and class presidents, leaders, participants in various competitions before the full-scale invasion, have lost their sense of proactivity. When they return, they cannot reintegrate into a new school or class, they do not want to be active. All the activities of the Russians were aimed at controlling and subduing these children. Activism is only allowed in the Russian patriotic movements like Yunarmiya, Movement of the First or other institutions controlled by the Russian government. Other activism is not allowed there. This is interpreted as extremism or terrorism, and Ukrainian teenagers end up in prison or in special services, where their behavior is recognized as deviant, and they are put on a special list.

Some children do not always realize that they have been abused. The Russians are trying so hard to normalize what they are doing that it is not always possible for an untrained child's mind to understand that it was wrong. Sometimes it takes time and psychosocial adaptation for a child to start remembering and understanding what really happened to them.

If the children are from proactive Ukrainian families, we see that the family or its individual members were often persecuted, visited by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and psychologists. They interfered with the children's minds, sometimes even forcing them to testify against their parents.

The level of stress is difficult to assess. Previously, the Kolotylivka-Pokrovka checkpoint was open. There utterly cruel and inhumane filtration measures were taken by the Russians. When children returned through this and other checkpoints, they were retraumatized on the way out of the occupation.

There are children who have been under occupation for three years, and we see that Russian propaganda has been partially successful: children use certain Russian narratives. And there are children who spent 11 years in the occupation but continue to retain their Ukrainian identity and have a pro-Ukrainian outlook. They understand that Russians attempted to re-educate them, told lies. So it is very different in each case.

— Is it true that, as a rule, from one to three children return at a time? I know of only one case when a group of 38 children returned.

— Yes. And the Russians deported children in large groups. There were cases when children were caught in cities like Mariupol and taken to Khartsyzk or Donetsk, etc. But usually these were large groups. Instead, one child or two children are returned at a time. And if, for example, a list of 8–13 children is collected through Qatar, the Russians portray it as an act of great heroism and goodwill.

In peace negotiations, Ukraine must insist that Russia return the children as it deported them, in groups. Otherwise, it will take decades. The procedure for return should be changed and this rather restrictive requirement for the physical presence of a legal representative should be abolished. So that children can be picked up by an authorized person — a representative of the state of Ukraine, UNICEF or the International Committee of the Red Cross, who will have all the documents from the legal representatives.

— What happens to children after they return to Ukraine? Who works with them?

— There is already a Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 551, which clearly sets out the algorithm: how we look for children, how we return them, when their reintegration begins. The algorithm was developed based on the real situation, how everything works in practice. There were consultations with organizations that return Ukrainian children, including the Ukrainian Child Rights Network.

There are three packages of reintegration assistance — short-, medium- and long-term. The services they contain make it possible to cover the basic needs of each child. However, the procedure itself states that these needs are determined individually.

The mechanism is working. The only thing I would like to highlight is that non-governmental organizations play a leading role in the implementation and provision of all these services. The freezing of USAID programs has affected their capacity. Therefore, Ukraine should take on these obligations more as a state, and it should become a national policy.

Children return not only to Kyiv or the Kyiv region, but also to regions that are not always ready for their return. When we talk about reintegration, it's not just about the child. We need to start with family support. Then move on to class, school, community and country levels. We need to work with everyone so that society is ready for the return of children and what kind of children they return as, what kind of support they expect from us. They have done a truly heroic act by leaving the occupation or Russia after deportation, and they clearly do not want anyone to criticize them, for example, for speaking Russian.

This should be a government effort not only at the central but also at the local level. We also need to address the issues of funding and personnel. To do this, we need to understand who these children are. That is, there should be not only a register of deported and forcibly displaced children, but also a database of children returned from the control of the Russian Federation.

— The war has been going on for eleven years, and the full-scale war is in its fourth year. Some children in the territories occupied by Russia have already grown up. And three years is a long time for a child. Children are forced to get Russian passports and undergo ideological re-education. Do you think Ukraine has lost contact with most of them?

— This is a very difficult question. Ukraine is now trying to make every effort not to lose this connection. In particular, by developing an online education system; introducing special conditions for children from the occupied territories to enter higher education institutions, as for some this is perhaps the only opportunity to leave the occupation and continue their lives in the territory controlled by Ukraine.

But when children are under the control of Russia, unfortunately, it is not only about Ukraine's efforts, but also about the efforts Russia is making to break these ties, eradicate Ukrainian identity and Russify the children. It jams communications, blocks websites, conducts inspections, comes to parents' homes, forces all children to enroll in schools in the occupied territories and tries to put such a load on them as to make it impossible to attend Ukrainian schools online, and so on. Then there is the information vacuum, the lack of any opportunity to regularly receive independent information from Ukraine.

There are cases when pro-Ukrainian families try their best to raise or preserve a child's Ukrainian identity and then do their best to help them leave. But we also had cases where parents became pro-Russian, and children did everything they could to escape the occupation and return to the territory controlled by Ukraine to continue their university studies.

Ukraine still needs to work on simplifying the return procedure, settling the issue of identity documents and confirming educational competencies to enable and encourage more children to return. The issue of documents is a sensitive one.

We are doing everything we can, but we have to understand that some children were born in the occupation and are now studying at school, where they are told that Crimea or Donbas are "native Russian lands." And in these circumstances, it is very difficult to understand what is true and what is a lie, especially given that children subconsciously believe what adults say, and often teachers are the ones who have credibility in their eyes. I heard Maryna Pishchanska, the children's ombudsman for children in Sevastopol, talk about how Ukrainian children need to be reformatted because they say that Crimea is Ukraine. The Russians are doing everything to reformat our children.

Still, I can say for sure that there are pro-Ukrainian children, and the trend is very positive. For example, in 2023, just over 3,000 Ukrainian children from the occupied territories entered higher education institutions in Ukraine. In 2024, their number stood at more than 11,000. That is, there are children who want to break free.

— Are we currently documenting the transfer of Ukrainian children to militarized camps? And how do we do this, given that since 2014, Russia has not granted access to the occupied territories to any independent monitoring mission?

— No, it does not, and I am not sure whether it will grant access to monitoring missions after the so-called ceasefire. In fact, this should be part of the negotiation process.

But they document their crimes on their own. For example, open sources contain information about a significant number of cases of children being taken away, including to camps with a clear militarized focus, such as the Young Patriot camp in the Moscow region or the Avangard camp in the Volgograd region. Starting in April 2025, the Russians intend to bring the program of staying in camps for children, including Ukrainian children, who are currently under their control, to a single standard. So, this so-called military-patriotic, militarized component will be strengthened. The Russians are interested in more militarization.

We began documenting the removal of Ukrainian children to re-education camps in 2023 and will continue this activity in 2025. Over the three months of last year, about 2,000 Ukrainian children already went through such camps. We have no information that anyone was detained there and not returned. Therefore, we assume that the children have returned, but the trend is quite vibrant.

— You wrote on Facebook that this dynamic is indicative: Putin is not going to end the war anytime soon.

— More than 55,000 Ukrainian children are members of the Yunarmiya. There are 1,200 specialized classes in schools in the occupied territories, including cadet, police and military-patriotic classes. Separate agreements are in force with the Rosgvardia and the Investigative Committee, including the transfer of schoolchildren to study in other occupied regions or the Russian Federation. Military-patriotic education of schoolchildren is organized as a "strategically important goal" in the territories 15 kilometers away from the frontline instead of ensuring the safety of children. Especially intensive military-patriotic education is taking place in Mariupol as an additional tool of revenge...

They boast about it, they are proud of it. When children are raised as soldiers, this is not an indication that the state is ready for peace. This is evidence that the state is preparing for a new act of aggression, for war. No one is planning to attack Russians. No state poses an existential threat to them. So why are they preparing and inflating their own mobilization reserves so much? Obviously, they need it for an offensive operation.

— The aforementioned letter from the US congressmen also requests that sanctions be imposed not only on Putin and Lvova-Belova, but also on other individuals, as the United Kingdom has done. Which countries have imposed sanctions on those responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian children and what kind of sanctions are these?

— This is the right message, especially in light of the fact that the idea of partially lifting sanctions against Russia, including individual sanctions, has already been voiced as a step towards the so-called peace. The fact that some congressmen oppose this and see the effectiveness of sanctions is worthy of respect.

Last December, active efforts were underway to coordinate the sanctions policies of the leading actors (the UK, the EU, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan) to make them more interconnected. After all, when Yunarmiya appears on the sanctions lists of different countries in 2022 and then 2023, the fact that it was included in the UK's sanctions list in 2024 is not exactly a victory.

Currently, the greatest efforts are being made to include in the sanctions lists both military-patriotic associations and centers and entities involved in the militarization of children. Along with Yunarmiya, in November 2024, the United Kingdom added representatives of the Warrior Center to the sanctions list. The EU did this as part of the 16th sanctions package.

We are talking about a group of people who militarize and indoctrinate Ukrainian children. There may also be representatives of Belarus among them. The United States has always paid great attention to its role in Russian crimes. In December 2024, the Helsinki Commission even held special hearings on this issue.

The sanctions are working, at least with regard to mid-level officials. Of course, they can't stop Maria Lvova-Belova, who is directly fulfilling Vladimir Putin's orders. But they can have an impact on governors, on the leaders of various camps.

I don't know what the scope of the peace agreement is, but I would include not just a provision, but a solution concerning Ukrainian children. The fourth point of the Peace Formula concerns, in particular, the return of Ukrainian children. This was included in most of the so-called peace initiatives, even in the Global South. So this is something that does not raise any questions. Every deported Ukrainian child must be returned, and an appropriate mechanism of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia must be established to achieve this ambitious goal.

But there must be more to the peace agreement. Not only about the physical return of Ukrainian children, but also about the fact that the Russian Federation must bring the perpetrators to justice. I know how it sounds. I'm not crazy, just in case. But even if Russia doesn't do it, it should still be provided for. International crimes must be punished. And the first entity that should punish them is the state of citizenship of the offender. And only then the International Criminal Court and other states should take the stage.

That is, there should be a question of responsibility and compensation for both moral and physical damage. Special resources should be allocated. For example, the International Compensation Mechanism, which now includes the International Register of Losses. There is a separate category for forcibly displaced and deported children.

No one else has a romantic vision that after this agreement Ukraine will be restored to 1991 borders. Some territories will remain under Russian occupation. And the regime of Ukrainian children in the occupied territories must be clearly defined. There should be access to Ukrainian education, at least online; children should be guaranteed freedom of movement (the ability to leave the occupied territory whenever they want) and preservation of their identity, including their national identity (no imposition of Russian citizenship; there must be Ukrainian citizenship and access to institutions that can produce documents confirming this citizenship).

There can be no other way and no other vision of peace. There are examples where separate provisions for children have been set aside in peace agreements. For example, in Colombia and Nepal.

— It all looks right, but how realistic do you believe it is?

— That's a good question. You know, I don't want to lie. The main principle here is "ask for more, get something in the middle." It depends on Ukraine what sort of maximum demands it will make. And they should be more than just the return of deported and forcibly displaced children. Especially if the territories remain occupied. This should be a wide range of recommendations that must be met, and there should be a certain mechanism of action if Russia does not comply with them. That is, some guarantees come into effect not only if the Russians start shooting again, but also if they hand out their passports in the occupied territories again, eradicate the Ukrainian language from the school system and do not allow independent monitoring missions to determine whether Russia is complying with all these requirements. All of this is not my imagination; these are the norms of international humanitarian law.