Russia abducted over 20.000 Ukrainian children, another 1.5 million may be deported
Photo: Human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets (Vitalii Nosach, RBK-Ukraine).
Russia has illegally abducted more than 20,000 Ukrainian children. There is also a risk of deportation of another 1.5 million Ukrainian children, Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets says.
The Commissioner spoke at the third plenary event of the international coalition for the return of Ukrainian children.
“I informed the audience that Russia has abducted more than 20 thousand children from Ukraine. However, there is a high risk of deportation of another 1.5 million children who remain in the temporarily occupied territories. Forcibly displaced and deported persons have their data changed so that their relatives and homeland cannot find them and return them,” the ombudsman said.
According to Lubinets, Ukrainian children are sent to so-called re-education camps where they are zombified with Russian propaganda.
He also told the partners about the deportation of orphanages, such as the Oleshky orphanage in the Kherson region. The children were first moved to the occupied territories and then deported to Russia. Children from the Kherson Regional Children's Home were deported to Russia and adopted without permission.
“We are aware of the facts that Ukrainian orphans deported to Russia receive inadequate medical care and have inadequate living conditions,” the ombudsman added.
Russia's deportation of Ukrainian children
Russia has continued to illegally deport Ukrainian children since the beginning of the full-scale war. It was for the deportation of children that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine is working to return the children, but, according to the Ombudsman, it is a complicated process. Russia does not cooperate, and each case is considered separately.
Recently, it became known that Ukraine managed to evacuate a family from the Russian occupation - a mother and her children.
