Trump, EU's von der Leyen discuss plight of children in war

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday they spoke about missing children due to conflict as Trump hosted European and NATO leaders in Washington to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine.

Trump's wife, Melania Trump, raised the plight of children in Ukraine and Russia in a personal letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, two White House officials said on Friday when Trump met Putin at a summit in Alaska. Trump hand-delivered that letter to Putin.

Trump and the European leader "have been discussing the massive Worldwide problem of missing children," the U.S. president said on social media late on Monday, without mentioning any particular country in his post. "This is, likewise, a big subject with my wife, Melania."

Ukraine has called the abductions of tens of thousands of its children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide. Moscow has previously said it has been protecting vulnerable children from a war zone.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has said Russia has inflicted suffering on millions of Ukrainian children and violated their rights since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"The human cost of this war must end. And that means every single Ukrainian child abducted by Russia must be returned to their families," von der Leyen said on X, in reference to her discussion with Trump.

Images of suffering children during Russia's war in Ukraine and Israel's war in Gaza have caused alarm around the world, including the visuals of starving kids in the Palestinian enclave. The plight of children left devastated by years of violence in Syria had also sparked outrage.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)