Ukrainian parents in High Court battle over child’s return to war-torn country

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Two Ukrainian parents are in a High Court battle over whether their child can be taken back to the war-torn country amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.

The family fled their home shortly before the start of the war in February 2022 and moved to London in December last year.

After the mother said she wanted to take the child back to Ukraine, the father asked for a court order blocking them from leaving the UK in February.

The mother is now asking a High Court judge to order the child’s return to the country while the father is opposing the bid, citing the danger posed by the conflict.

None of the family involved can be identified for legal reasons.

In written submissions for a hearing in London, barrister Anita Guha KC, for the mother, said the child’s home, school, family and “extended social life and world” were in Ukraine.

She continued: “The court can have full confidence that the mother will do everything in her power to protect [the child] if any unforeseeable deterioration in the security situation unfolds.

“This is a family with the resources and financial means to effect a swift exit… as they were able to achieve in February 2022 at the outbreak of the hostilities.”

Ms Guha said there was “never any collective intention or agreement to a permanent move to London” between the parents, with the child returning to Ukraine for several weeks after first leaving in 2022.

The court was told that after arriving in the UK in December last year, by January the mother wanted to take the child back to Ukraine.

The father then applied for a court order blocking the mother from taking the child out of the UK, which was granted.

At the hearing, Ms Guha said the mother felt her home was in Ukraine but the father said in evidence that he did not believe this was the case.

She said: “It is clear what the father’s motives were. He wanted to engineer a situation where he could keep [the child] in this country, even though he blatantly knew that the mother disagreed with this.”

Ms Guha said the mother believed the court order was “shocking and draconian” and prevented her from taking her child home.

But the father’s lawyers said the family decided to move to London as early as 2020.

Jacqueline Renton, representing the father, stated that “it is clear the parties agreed” to the child’s relocation to London.

Giving evidence, the father – who at times spoke through a Ukrainian interpreter – said he still wished for his child to stay in the UK as “it will be better” for them, describing life in Ukraine as “very dangerous”.

He said: “Here it is very safe and everything is very good. I would like [the child] to stay in London and finish school.”

He continued that he wished for the child to “have a very good relationship” with their mother, adding the child needed their mother “100%”.

Ms Renton told the court that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had advised there should not be any travel to their home city due to the danger posed by the conflict.

She said: “These factions or organs of government are best placed to assess risk because of the sources that are available to them.”

She said the risk to the child in Ukraine is “grave”, citing a missile falling a kilometre from the mother’s home during an air strike on April 23.

She said the child would be returned to Ukraine “in the middle of a war, going into the bomb shelter, the schooling being interrupted, nine hours of blackouts”.

Mr Justice Hayden will give his ruling at a later date.