EU plans rescue of Ukrainian children in Russia
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported by Russia to its territory.
The European Union is organizing a conference on securing the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine as a non-government organization returned 17 of the “deported” kids to their parents in Kyiv.
“We are at the very beginning of very hard work, we aim to pull together international pressure to take all possible measures to establish the whereabouts of these children,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse.
“And we aim to assist UN (United Nations) bodies and the relevant international organizations in obtaining better and more complete information on the children who were deported to Russia. And this includes also the children who were later adopted or transferred to Russian foster families,” she said.
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia since Moscow’s 24 February 2022 invasion, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.
Last week, the International
Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant accusing Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of war crimes for overseeing the deportation of Ukrainian children.
Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.
Meanwhile, Denys Zaporozhchenko held his son, 10, and kissed his forehead, before also hugging his two daughters who were among 17 brought by bus to Kyiv from the Russian-held Crimea by Save Ukraine.
Zaporozhchenko last saw his children in October.
Families were sometimes pressured into sending their kids on the so-called holidays, Myroslava Kharchenko, a lawyer working with Save Ukraine, said.
After “blackmail, manipulation and intimidation, they take the children away,” Kharchenko added.
Zaporozhchenko last saw his children in October in Kherson after Russian officials promised to send them to summer camps for a week or two,” he told AFP.
Save Ukraine organized a group collection for the separated children by assuming power of attorney for those parents unable to make the journey.
They chartered a bus that went through Poland and Belarus and then to Russia, before picking up the children in annexed Crimea.
Some of children interviewed by AFP described a level of political indoctrination.
Zaporozhchenko’s 11-year-old daughter, Yana, said “everything was like in normal camps” but camp officials “made us sing and dance when inspectors came” from Moscow.