Adolf Eichmann: “I was doing my duty… I not only obeyed orders — I obeyed the law.”

That is how Adolf Eichmann explained his actions during his trial in Jerusalem. Philosopher Hannah Arendt later described this logic in her famous book The Banality of Evil, showing how mass crimes are often not carried out by fanatics, but by ordinary people who believe they are simply “doing their job.”

The United Nations has now officially recognized the deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia as a crime against humanity.

On March 9, 2026, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that Russia’s systematic deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children constitutes a crime against humanity under international law. The findings were based on extensive documentation, witness testimony, and analysis of official records.

The commission’s report describes a pattern that has unfolded since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian children — including orphans and children from state institutions as well as those separated from their parents during the war — have been transported from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia or to Russian-controlled regions.

According to Ukrainian government estimates, nearly 20,000 children have been deported or forcibly transferred since the start of the invasion, although only a fraction have been successfully returned.

For years, the issue has been discussed in diplomatic language — as a humanitarian tragedy, a war crime, or a violation of international law. But the new UN report goes further. It states that the scale, coordination, and systematic nature of the deportations qualify them as crimes against humanity.

This classification carries enormous legal and moral implications.

A system, not isolated incidents

The commission found that the deportations were not random wartime evacuations but part of a coordinated policy implemented across multiple regions and institutions. Investigators documented cases of children being transported from occupied Ukrainian territories, placed in Russian institutions or foster families, and in some cases granted Russian citizenship.

Russia has consistently claimed that these transfers were humanitarian evacuations designed to protect children from active combat zones. But the UN investigation disputes that narrative.

Under international humanitarian law, evacuations of children during armed conflict are permitted only under strict conditions: they must be temporary, must be necessary for safety or medical reasons, and the children must be returned to their families and country as soon as possible.

Instead, investigators found that many children were relocated across Russia, placed into long-term institutional care, or even put into adoption databases. Some were reportedly sent to re-education programs designed to promote pro-Russian narratives and identity.

For the commission, these patterns demonstrate a systematic policy rather than an emergency response.

And that distinction is precisely what transforms a war crime into a crime against humanity.

The legal chain of responsibility

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.

Those warrants were historic: never before had the ICC issued an arrest warrant against the leader of a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Yet the deeper question raised by the UN report is not only about the top of the political hierarchy.

Even if responsibility ultimately reaches the Kremlin, the deportation system itself involves far more than a handful of officials.

Regional administrators organized transfers. Social service officials processed documents. Employees of children’s homes and camps received the children. Officials issued Russian citizenship papers. Foster families accepted children into their households.

In other words, this was not the act of one man.

It was a bureaucratic machine.

A machine composed of thousands of individuals who carried out the process step by step — paperwork, transport, guardianship, adoption, institutional placement.

Each step looked administrative. Routine. Ordinary.

And that is precisely the point.

The uncomfortable question for societies watching from afar.

History teaches that large-scale crimes rarely rely solely on a small circle of leaders.

They require systems. They require administrators. They require ordinary people willing to participate — sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes passively, sometimes simply because “this is my job.”

This is why Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” remains so unsettling even decades later.

Eichmann did not present himself as a monster. He described himself as a civil servant.

Someone who followed rules. Someone who obeyed the law. Someone who executed orders efficiently.

That logic echoes in almost every major atrocity investigated after the Second World War.

“I followed orders.” “I was doing my job.” “I had no choice.”

The UN report on Ukrainian children raises a similar dilemma for the future.

If international courts eventually examine this system in detail, where will the line of responsibility be drawn?

Only at the top of the political pyramid?

Or also among those who implemented the system — those who transported children, processed documents, ran institutions, and organized placements?

A question Israelis may one day face

For Israeli readers, these questions resonate in a particularly direct way.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961 was not only about a single Nazi official. It was about understanding how bureaucratic systems can transform ordinary people into participants in extraordinary crimes.

Today, as Israelis look around their own cities — Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem — another uncomfortable question may emerge.

When we encounter Russian tourists, new immigrants, or Russian-speaking visitors, do we ever consider the possibility that some of them might once have been part of such systems?

Not generals. Not ministers.

Just administrators. Social workers. Officials. Employees of institutions.

People who might say, if asked years from now:

“I was doing my job.”

Why the UN’s wording matters

By labeling the deportation of Ukrainian children a crime against humanity, the United Nations has shifted the conversation from humanitarian concern to legal accountability.

Crimes against humanity are not defined by isolated acts. They are defined by patterns. By systems. By policies carried out across institutions and populations.

The commission concluded that the deportations and transfers were widespread, systematic, and coordinated at high levels of the Russian government — criteria that meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity.

But the legal implications may extend far beyond the names currently listed in arrest warrants.

Because systems are never run by a single person.

They are run by thousands.

And history suggests that the hardest question always comes later — when societies must decide whether responsibility stops at the leaders… or extends to those who quietly kept the machinery running.

In the middle of these debates, one uncomfortable truth remains.

Crimes against humanity rarely begin with monsters.

More often, they begin with people who believe they are simply doing their job — a reality that observers of Israel and Ukraine alike cannot easily ignore, as noted in analysis published by NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency examining the broader political implications of the UN findings.

And that is why the UN’s new decision may not only be about Ukraine.

It may also be about how the world — and history — eventually judges those who helped make such systems possible.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)