In her report on the activities of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Russian Federation in 2022, Maria Lvova-Belova stated that since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russians have deported over 700,000 children from Ukraine to Russian territory. According to her, the majority of Ukrainian children arrived in Russia with their parents or other relatives. As mentioned in the report, from April to October 2022, the occupiers transferred and placed 380 Ukrainian orphaned and parentless children from Donetsk and Luhansk regions into "foster families". The report also claims that in November 2022, 52 children with "severe pathologies" from the Oleshkinsk children's home in the Kherson region were transported to occupied Crimea - according to the commissioner, to a "safe territory". It is also reported that during late summer and autumn of 2022, the occupiers transported Ukrainian children from Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Kharkiv regions to occupied Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory of the aggressor country, claiming that they were going for "vacation".
Ukrainian ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, commenting on the report of the Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights, stated that such a policy towards Ukrainian children is a component of the genocide against our nation, violates international humanitarian law, and is direct evidence of a crime for the International Criminal Court.
According to the opinion of the Ukrainian Commissioner for Children's Rights, Daria Herasymchuk, the number of exported Ukrainian children does not correspond to reality. The Russian authorities intentionally inflated this figure while promoting the thesis of "evacuation and rescue of children". As of the end of July, Ukraine confirmed the illegal export of 19,546 children.
The abduction of Ukrainian children, as well as hindering the export of Ukrainian grain, rocket terror, and ecocide in the occupied territories, are all part of Russia's hybrid aggression against Ukraine. Through the abduction of children, the Russians aim to destroy the future generation of Ukrainians. Moreover, abduction is a kind of psychological blow, creating a barrier between the children and their parents after forced separation.
Dmytro Lubinets called on the international community to pay attention to Russia's crimes against Ukrainian children and to support their return to Ukrainian territory. Additionally, the ombudsman appealed to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, requesting to obtain lists of deported Ukrainian children from Russia and to provide them to Ukraine.
On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The acting Russian President was charged with war crimes - the illegal deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine. An arrest warrant was also issued for the Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
Source: nieuwsimpuls.online
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