Children’s rights must be protected in any Ukraine peace plan, 130 MPs tell Foreign Office

Labour MP Johanna Baxter, who leads the group of cross-bench MPs who signed the letter, at the Palace of Westminster in September before a showing of a documentary about the fate of Ukrainian children as a result of the war against Russia. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

A cross-party group of more than 130 Westminster MPs has written to ministers urging them to ensure any US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine includes protections for forcibly deported Ukrainian children, saying the current version risks “extinguishing” their rights.

Led by the Labour MP Johanna Baxter, the letter to Stephen Doughty, whose Foreign Office brief includes Europe, warns that the current peace framework being touted by the Trump administration would “hollow out” protections to children enshrined in the Geneva conventions.