Decades ago, the international community made a series of decisions to prevent mass killings of civilians during wars and armed conflicts. This led to the creation of rules of war outlined in international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute, and others. Russia systematically disregards international legal norms governing the conduct of war and the protection of its victims, including children. Every day, the world learns more and more about the atrocities committed by Russian occupiers in Ukraine. Barbaric aggression spares no one - neither unarmed men, nor women, nor children.
Since 2014, Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly reported Russia's violations of various international agreements in the occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Russia cynically organizes mass forced deportations of people from the territories occupied by its troops.
The death of loved ones, destroyed homes and schools, the coldness of basements, the fear of shelling, loneliness, and orphanhood have become a horrifying new reality for children throughout Ukraine. Cases of child abduction began in the territories occupied until 2022, when the so-called "evacuation" was announced. After the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, such statements increased. Minors and those from newly occupied territories were subjected to "evacuation." Russians aim to take children out of Ukraine primarily to use them for manipulation and propaganda.
Many children taken out of Ukraine are illegally placed in foster families, placed in orphanages, or subjected to "Russification" techniques in Russia and annexed Crimea. In March 2023, Maria Lvova-Belova, the authorized representative for children's rights under the President of the Russian Federation, announced that the occupied Donbas would be the first of the annexed regions to join the state's federal child database. Russia had established a similar database back in 2001. The main function of this system is to store and process data on all children who have been left without parental care, orphans, as well as Russian families willing to adopt children.
Russia cynically organized mass forced deportations of people from the territories occupied by its troops. Acting directly under the guidance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lvova-Belova oversaw Russia's actions in deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Her efforts include violent adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families, so-called patriotic upbringing of Ukrainian children, legislative changes aimed at expediting the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian children.
For every child, particularly from the territories occupied after the start of the full-scale invasion, the occupiers strived to compile a complete questionnaire with all personal information and photographs: from the place of residence and information about relatives to height, illnesses, eye and hair color, and character traits.
Ukrainian hackers from the KibOrg team, comprised of journalists and IT specialists dedicated to investigating crimes by Russians and collaborators in Ukraine while debunking Russian disinformation, gained access to the Russian database "Children of Donbas." This database contains information about children abducted by Russia. It includes a registry of adopted children, those available for adoption, candidates for adoption, as well as guardians and caregivers. There is also separate information about children facing difficult life circumstances. Most importantly, it contains a registry of children who, for various reasons, were taken beyond the occupied part of the Donetsk region.
The stories of victims from Mariupol bear witness to the atrocities committed by Russian occupation forces. Documented cases of child abduction are identified, and collaborators from Mariupol who are complicit in these crimes are named. Among them are Svetlana Maiboroda, the director of the so-called "State Service for Family and Children of the DPR," who personally appoints personnel to district offices with access to the database, and Oleg Morgunov, a former police colonel who switched sides to the militants in 2015. Activists point out that high-ranking occupation officials, such as "Minister of Labor and Social Policy" Svetlana Anatolyevna Malakhova and "Commissioner for Children's Rights" Inna Vladimirovna Shvenk (Mischenko), are directly involved in child abductions.
Russian courts establish the legal fact of leaving a child without parental care based on the examination of only a portion of documents and immediately appoint their own guardian. There are also cases where children with parents or guardians were intentionally listed as children left without care by the occupiers. There are documented cases of Russians collecting documents related to real estate that may belong to the relocated children. To date, it is challenging to determine the actual scale of forced displacements, the number of Ukrainian children taken out of the country, and their whereabouts in Russia. However, information from various sources indicates that "many thousands of Ukrainians" have become victims of deportation, and the price and consequences of this crime are "enormous for the present and the future."
Among the numerous documents, there is a printout of an email with a distinctive subject line - "Israel." The message, requesting to send photos of children who died between 2021 and 2022, was sent to the then-occupational "mayor" Ivashchenko. The sender of the email is referred to as the "Israeli Anti-Nazi Front."
After researching the activities of the mentioned organization through publications in Russian propaganda media, it was revealed that the "Alley of Angels," for which the "front" had requested photos of the deceased, is one of the actions aimed at promoting anti-Ukrainian narratives in Israel. Followers of the organization record videos denying Russian aggression in Ukraine, hold rallies in Israel in support of the war, and engage in protest actions demanding the expulsion of the Ukrainian ambassador and calling on the country's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to supply weapons to Ukraine. Such organizations, likely funded by the Russian budget, serve as an "alternative opinion" to influence Israelis and exert political pressure on the country's leadership.
All such facts and war crimes committed by Russia receive wide international attention, are carefully documented by law enforcement agencies in Ukraine, human rights organizations, and institutions, and will undoubtedly become aggravating circumstances in international courts against Russian war criminals. This is just the beginning of the process of holding those responsible accountable. Just as in the twentieth century, the world sought justice for each perpetrator of the Nazi regime for their crimes against humanity and life, Ukraine will not stop until all those responsible are brought to justice. International criminal responsibility for the highest military and political leadership of Russia for serious violations of international humanitarian law, including crimes against children, as well as criminal responsibility for anyone committing a war crime, is only a matter of time. We hope that Russian war criminals from the highest political and military leadership of the Russian Federation and their accomplices will live to see their verdicts and be held fully accountable for their actions.
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