San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
UKRAINIAN CHILDREN TAKEN TO RUSSIA TO BE ADOPTED
Such transfers could be war crimes under international law
As Russian forces laid siege to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol last spring, children fled bombed-out group homes and boarding schools. Separated from their families, they followed neighbors or strangers heading west, seeking the relative safety of central Ukraine.
Instead, at checkpoints around the city, pro-russia forces intercepted them, according to interviews with the children, witnesses and family members. Authorities put them on buses headed deeper into Russianheld territory.
“I didn’t want to go,” said Anya, 14, who escaped a home for tuberculosis patients in Mariupol and is now with a foster family near Moscow. “But nobody asked me.”
In the rush to flee, she said, she left behind a sketchbook containing her mother’s phone number. All she could remember were the first three digits.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February, Russian authorities have announced with patriotic fanfare the transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be adopted and become citizens. On state-run television, officials offer teddy bears to new arrivals, who are portrayed as abandoned children being rescued from war.
In fact, this mass transfer of children is a potential war crime, regardless of whether they were orphans. And although many of the children did come from orphanages and group homes, authorities also took children whose relatives or guardians want them back, according to interviews with children and families on both sides of the border.
As Russian troops pushed into Ukraine, children like Anya who were f leeing newly occupied territories were swept up. Some were taken after their parents had been killed or imprisoned by Russian troops, according to local Ukrainian officials.
This systematic resettlement is part of a broader strategy by Russian President Vladimir Putin to treat Ukraine as a part of Russia and cast his illegal invasion as a noble cause. His government has used children — including the sick, poor and orphaned — as part of a propaganda campaign presenting Russia as a charitable savior.
Through interviews with parents, officials, doctors and children in Ukraine and Russia, The New York Times identified several children who had been taken away. Some returned home. Others, including Anya, remain in Russia.
Anya had lived apart from her mother and was in only sporadic contact with her before the war. Without the phone number, Anya said, she could not reach her.
At first, reporters could not, either.
The Times is not identifying Anya’s full name. She said that her Russian foster family has treated her well but that she ached to return to Ukraine. Soon, though, she said she would become a Russian citizen. “I don’t want to,” she said. “My friends and family aren’t here.”
Anya and others described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force as children were shipped to Russia from Ukraine. Together, their accounts add to a growing body of evidence from governments and news reports about a removal-and-adoption policy that targets the most vulnerable children in the most dangerous situations.
Transferring people out of an occupied territory can be a war crime, and experts say the practice is especially thorny when it involves children, who may not be able to consent. Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of perpetrating a genocide. The forced transfer of children, when intended to destroy a national group, is an act of genocide under international law.
After more than a month of reporting, Times reporters reached Anya’s mother, Oksana, in Ukraine. With no job, no Internet access, a small disability pension and a war going on, she said she had no idea how to find her daughter.
Reporters told Anya and Oksana how to contact each other. The prospect of Anya returning home, though, is unclear. Ukrainian officials have been tight-lipped about how they have gotten dozens of children back from Russia.