On the same day that the Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to Venezuela dissident María Corina Machado (which she then dedicated to the Venezuelan people and President Trump), Melania Trump has thrown her name in the ring for next year’s recognition.

Who remembers the Alaska summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin? While the summit itself did not have the desired results for the Trump administration (as the war continues to slog onward with little change in sight), it seems that the personal letter from First Lady Melania Trump has borne some fruit. The First Lady announced today that there have been successful reunification efforts for Ukrainian children as a result of her team’s work with the Putin government.

“A child’s soul knows no borders,” the first lady began her closely held announcement in the White House grand foyer.

Melania Trump wrote a letter to Putin addressing the issue that was delivered at President Trump’s Aug. 15 Alaska summit with his Russian counterpart and “much has unfolded since President Putin received my letter,” she said.

Putin replied to her letter and “since then President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication,” the Slovenia-born former fashion model said, describing “several back channel meetings and calls” that have taken place.

“My representative has been working directly with President Putin’s team” to connect children and their families, Melania Trump said.

She also discussed the issue with Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska — who leads Kyiv’s “Bring Back Kids” initiative to return children kidnapped into Russia — during a 20-minute meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month.

During that tete-a-tete, Zelenska thanked Melania for her efforts to help return the Ukrainian children to their families, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US Olha Stefanishyna exclusively told The Post.

Thanks to Melania Trump’s quiet efforts, eight children – seven Ukrainian, and one Russian – have been repatriated back to their families.

“In fact, eight children have been rejoined with their families during the past 24 hours,” she said. “Each child has lived in turmoil because of the war in Ukraine.”

The Associated Press documented the grabbing of Ukrainian children in 2022, after which the International Criminal Court said it had issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Three of the eight children were separated from their parents and “displaced” to Russia because of front-line fighting, Melania Trump said. The other five were separated from family members across borders because of the conflict, including a girl who has gone from Ukraine to Russia, she said.

Melania Trump said she also raised concerns about children who were minors “at the time they were displaced by the war” but have since reached adulthood and currently live in Russia.

She said that their safe return requires “coordinated assistance” and that Russia has agreed to “rejoin individuals who have turned 18 within a short period of time.”

Reunification efforts continue, she added, and plans were underway for more children to rejoin their families in the “immediate future.”

“I hope peace will come soon,” the first lady said. “It will begin with our children.”

This is obviously a cause near and dear to Melania Trump’s heart, and one where she has a unique influence and opportunity to actually make an effective difference. And she has done this quietly, until she could come forward with a statement that children have actually been returned to their families. Can anyone remember the last time a First Lady had such an internationally focused quiet effort to make something come about? (Michelle Obama’s hashtag campaign for kidnapped Nigerian girls did not exactly get results.)

I do believe that what @FLOTUS Melania Trump has been doing regarding Ukrainian children is unprecedented. I have never known a First Lady to have backchannel negotiations with a world leader, let alone one involved in a war with a US ally…

— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) October 10, 2025

Naturally, wherever you look on social media, you can find the haters and detractors. I’m guessing the number of Ukrainian children those bitching about Melania have made the effort to support and return to their families is exactly zero.

We should all be supporting the First Lady’s efforts to continue reunifying Ukrainian children with their families. Officially, the Ukrainian goverment has stated that 19,000 children were forcibly taken to Russia, but the number is nearly impossible to determine, especially because Russia has claimed that they have 700,000 children. Eight children doesn’t seem like a lot – but it is the entire world to those eight children. And if more are expected, as Melania Trump indicates, then her efforts deserve even more praise. Between her work, and President Trump’s efforts in the Middle East, would it be too much of a stretch to consider the President and First Lady for a joint Nobel Peace Prize next year?

Featured image: First Lady Melania Trump, official White House portrait by Régine Mahaux on January 27, 2025, cropped, public domain