Ukraine hands Russia list of children to bring home - Zelenskyy's aide after Istanbul talks
Photo: Andriy Yermak (RBK-Ukraine, Vitalii Nosach)
Ukraine handed over to Russian representatives at Istanbul talks a list of Ukrainian children who must be returned, reports the head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak.
Yermak mentioned hundreds of children whom Russia has illegally deported, forcibly transferred, or is holding in temporarily occupied territories.
He also recalled that during the Ukraine–US negotiations in Jeddah, Ukraine was ready for a 30-day ceasefire, and nothing has changed since then.
"The return of Ukrainian children is an integral part of a just and lasting peace and a key element of trust, the first test of sincerity of intent. We await a response. The ball is in Russia’s court. Genuine good faith is not words, but actions. And now is the time to prove it," Yermak wrote.
Deportation of Ukrainian children
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said earlier that since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia has deported more than 19,500 children from Ukraine. More than a thousand young Ukrainians have been brought back home.
The deportation of Ukrainian children was the reason the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted as a basis a draft law establishing liability for the illegal transfer and use of children for military purposes by a foreign state.
