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The children, 6-year-old Renata and 10-year-old Varvara, who were illegally taken to Russia, were returned to Ukraine. Their mother, a combat medic, was returned during a major exchange in October 2022, the Office of the President reported, FREEDOM informs.
700,000 Ukrainian children are currently in Russia. This was officially announced by the head of the Committee of the Federation Council on International Affairs Hryhoriy Karasin. Some children entered the territory of the Russian Federation together with their parents, and pupils from orphanages – together with teachers. But most often, minor Ukrainians are taken to Crimea, the Russian Federation, or Belarus, supposedly for “rehabilitation” or to rest in camps.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been mass-deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. In May 2023, the OSCE published the results of a report prepared by a special mission. But it came to the conclusion that the practice of forcibly moving Ukrainian children to Russia or temporarily occupied territories can be considered a crime against humanity. In addition, OSCE experts emphasized that the rights of children deported to Russia are grossly violated.
“There are various elements of this phenomenon that are impressive. The fact that in the third decade of the 21st century, the forced deportation of the most vulnerable population group — children — is one of them. And also the scale that this phenomenon has acquired,” said Veronika Bilkova, a participant of the third OSCE mission to Ukraine in an interview with DW.
For the first time since the beginning of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine notified three persons of suspicion in connection with the kidnapping of 48 pupils of the Kherson Children’s Home and their forced deportation to Russia.
“Their actions are qualified as a violation of the laws and customs of war. Among the suspects is a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the head of the “Department of Health of the Kherson Region” illegally created by the occupation authorities, and the acting head doctor of the “Kherson Regional Children’s Home”, said Yuliya Usenko, head of the Department for the Protection of Children’s Interests and Countermeasures domestic violence.
The investigation established that the children did not need separate treatment due to their health. However, they were taken to the Crimea annexed by Russia. Currently, their fate remains unknown. As of June 16, Ukraine confirmed the illegal removal of 19,499 children. Belarusian oppositionists also reported that 2,150 Ukrainian children, in particular orphans aged 6 to 15, were deported to so-called health camps and sanatoriums on the territory of Belarus.
“Ukrainian children are deported, illegally moved not only to the territory of Russia, but also to the territory of Belarus. Where they are also subjected to processing and propaganda by the “Russian world”. And they want in every possible way to make Ukrainian children forget that they are Ukrainians,” says Olga Karach, a Belarusian human rights activist.
Since February 2022, the Russian occupiers have taken 700,000 children from Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation. This was stated by the Russian government official Hryhoriy Karasin. He called it “rescue from bombings and shelling”, which, by the way, are organized by the Russian military themselves. The GUR believes that for the occupation forces of Russia, the children of Ukraine have actually become a war trophy.
“Kidnapping and deportation of minor citizens of Ukraine is on the list of grave crimes committed by the aggressor state. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Kremlin dictator Volodymyr Putin and the so-called commissioner for children’s rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the forced removal of children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia,” the Main Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported on Facebook.
In Russia, they want to legally justify the deportation of children from Ukraine, British intelligence informs. And now the Kremlin is conducting an active information operation aimed at shielding Putin’s actions regarding the abduction of Ukrainian children.
