Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, confirmed that the Russian government is using a variety of schemes to deport Ukrainian children to Russia, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its assessment of March 10, 2023.
“Voluntary” moves
Lvova-Belova made the comments in an apparent attempt to disprove Western allegations that the deportations are illegal. She claimed the children had come to occupied Ukraine and Russia “voluntarily” and could return to their families.
She acknowledged that children from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv oblasts had been taken to “sanatoriums” and health camps in occupied Crimea and Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, describing the trips as rest and protection from hostilities. She said 89 “children of Ukrainian citizens” from these programmes would be reunited with their families.
Most not returned
ISW noted that it had previously reported that several children in Krasnodar Krai and Crimea were being held for forced adoption by Russian families. A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab investigation found that only 126 of likely more than 14,700 deported Ukrainian children had returned to Ukraine as of January 2023.
Returning some children does not change the fact that most abducted children have not come back, ISW said. It assessed that the forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children appeared to violate the Genocide Convention and formed part of a wider campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Ukraine says it has identified thousands of children deported to Russia and has called for international help to bring them home.
Sources
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