{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=D6EECC12-C808-4059-B39D-039F0B6E5A57", "Legislation to Bolster Support for Identifying and Returning Kidnapped Ukrainian Children Signed into Law", "2025-12-18", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "MN", "Amy Klobuchar", "K000367", "www.klobuchar.senate.gov", "klobuchar", "https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases", "scraper", "Russia has abducted thousands of Ukrainian children \u2013 attempting to erase their cultural identity and heritage\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced that their bipartisan Abducted Ukrainian Children Recovery and Accountability Act has been signed into law.\n\nThe Abducted Ukrainian Children Recovery and Accountability Act increases support for Ukraine\u2019s efforts to investigate and track the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted during Putin\u2019s brutal invasion, assist with the rehabilitation and reintegration of children who are returned, and advance justice and accountability for perpetrators of these abductions.\n\n\u201cThis is an important step to bring home the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russia. We cannot accept a world where children are abducted during wartime and used as a form of hostage-taking for negotiations. Now that our bipartisan bill is law, our country will provide necessary support to track these children, support those who return home, and hold the perpetrators accountable,\u201d said Klobuchar.\n\n\u201cAfter he started the largest war in Europe since World War II, Putin kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children to brainwash and Russify them, trying to destroy their cultural identity and heritage. These children should be returned home as soon as possible. I\u2019m glad to see our measure become law to support critical tools to identify and track the location of these children and reintegrate them into their homeland. We\u2019re also helping hold perpetrators accountable for their atrocities to ensure justice is served,\u201d said Grassley.\n\nLast month, Klobuchar met with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican along with a delegation from Ukraine working to return the thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during Putin\u2019s brutal invasion.\n\nKlobuchar testified at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the abduction of Ukrainian children earlier this month where she discussed her meeting with the Pope and rescued Ukrainian children, and bipartisan efforts to bring the Ukrainian children home.\n\nThe Abducted Ukrainian Children Recovery and Accountability Act is complementary to the Designating the Russian Federation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism Act, which was introduced in September by Klobuchar and Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Katie Britt (R-AL) to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law if it fails to return the thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped during the course of the war.\n\nIn March, Klobuchar and Grassley were joined by Senator Durbin in leading a bipartisan letter calling for the State Department to continue supporting efforts to investigate Russia\u2019s abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.\n\nTo date, Ukrainian authorities have received thousands of confirmed reports of unlawful deportations and forced transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus or Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The abductions aim to erase the children\u2019s Ukrainian names, language, and identity. As of today, Ukraine and its partners have managed to return about 1,900 abducted children.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=D6EECC12-C808-4059-B39D-039F0B6E5A57"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7277920376509428, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}