Russia boasts about deporting Ukrainian children
700,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine started, according to Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s ombudswoman for children’s rights. These children include 1,500 from orphanages, but the vast majority were forcibly taken from their parents or deported to Russia with their families. Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory (HRL) found at least 43 facilities from Crimea to Magadan in the Russian Far East where children were being held and politically “re-educated”. Parents’ consents were collected under duress and often violated, children’s returns were suspended and thousands were placed with foster families. Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the abduction of Ukrainian children as a war crime. Russia has withdrawn from the Geneva Conventions’ Protocol I on the protection of victims of international armed conflicts. Putin calls the abduction issue “exaggerated”. Further listening: The 31: Ukraine’s stolen children.
Photograph AP/ Alamy