The letter documents the scale of the humanitarian crisis — 16,000 civilians detained, 19,546 children deported, 3 to 3.3 million Ukrainians under occupation forced to take Russian citizenship — and asks President Macron to make the release of the captives a non-negotiable precondition for any agreement with Moscow.

Since February 2022, you have placed France at the forefront of European nations supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Your determination to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity, your initiative in creating the Coalition of the Willing, and your unwavering commitment to President Zelensky have embodied the European values of freedom and resistance to oppression. As prospects for negotiations open up, your role is crucial in defining the conditions for a just and lasting peace.

It is in this spirit that we address you today. United around the People First appeal launched by the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Ukrainian Oleksandra Matviichuk and Russian Oleg Orlov, we ask you to place at the heart of the negotiations a fundamental demand: the protection and immediate and unconditional liberation of the Ukrainian population victims of Kremlin terror.

Figures documented by human rights organizations reveal the scale of the tragedy:

• 19,546 deported Ukrainian children were recorded by the Ukrainian authorities, of whom only 1,954 were able to be repatriated. Hundreds of thousands of others live under Russian occupation, subjected to systematic forced Russification from kindergarten onward, prepared to become future soldiers against their own homeland.

• At least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians, and many more according to some estimates, are missing and illegally detained in Russia. They are subjected to torture, sexual violence, humiliation, and inhumane treatment in flagrant violation of international law. Some of them have died in detention.

• Thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war are being tortured, executed, or subjected to terrifying conditions of detention that violate the Geneva Conventions. Their state of health is extremely worrying.

• The populations of the occupied territories (3 to 3.3 million people) are forced to take Russian citizenship under threat of expropriation, deprivation of social rights, deportation, or imprisonment. Even those who take Russian citizenship are not safe: the Russian authorities have begun expropriating the Ukrainian population to replace them with Russian settlers.

These crimes are not individual aberrations but are part of a system planned and supervised directly by Vladimir Putin.

This is why the Coalition of the Willing must impose a humanitarian framework on the talks with Russia:

• Access to all captives and all illegally displaced or deported children, granted to an international delegation of the ICRC.

• The return of the deported children.

• The release of Ukrainian civilians illegally detained in Russia and in the occupied territories.

• The repatriation of prisoners of war through exchanges or other means.

• The possibility for Ukrainians who wish to do so to leave the occupied territories.

• The end of the forced Russification of Ukrainians in all territories occupied by Russia.

It is also essential to rule out any transfer of territories currently under Ukrainian control to Russian control. Ceding territory is not simply drawing lines on a map; it is surrendering the millions of Ukrainians living there to a system of total oppression.

The values and honor of Europe are at stake in the fate of these children, these civilians, these prisoners, these populations. It is our collective capacity to defend humanity against barbarity.

With our deepest respect and confidence in your commitment ,

Signatories

Open letter submitted by:

Galia Ackerman , historian, writer, editor-in-chief of Desk Russia

Jean-François Bouthors , journalist, writer

Stéphane Courtois , historian

Michel Eltchaninoff , philosopher, essayist

François Kersaudy , academic, historian

Bernard-Henri Lévy , philosopher, writer, filmmaker

Marc Lévy , writer

Jonathan Littell , writer and filmmaker

Ariane Mnouchkine , director, founder of the Théâtre du Soleil

Sylvie Rollet, academic, president of For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours!

Nicolas Werth , historian, president of Memorial-France