The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on the mother of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Russian officials, and a military commander over the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and subjecting them to forced re-education.

These sanctions follow reports that Moscow forcibly deported nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled areas within Ukraine since the war began in 2022, according to the British news agency PA Media.

Reports indicate that around 6,000 of these children were sent to a network of re-education camps as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to erase Ukrainian cultural identity and prepare them for Russian military service.

On Wednesday, the UK Foreign Office announced sanctions on eight individuals and three organizations involved in the deportations, which the British Foreign Secretary described as “disgraceful.”

Among those sanctioned are Aymani Kadyrova, mother of Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and head of the Ahmed Kadyrov Foundation, which is reportedly running re-education programs for Ukrainian children.

Other sanctioned individuals include Anastasia Akuratova, an official in the Russian Ministry of Education; Chechen military commander Zamid Chalayev; Lilia Vasileva; and Renat Sadykov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Youth Affairs in the Russian region of Tatarstan.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “It is absolutely unacceptable to remove a child from their environment and seek to erase their heritage and forcibly raise them through lies and deception.”

Several of those sanctioned on Wednesday had previously been sanctioned by other Western countries, including Canada and the European Union.