In connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin mass-deported Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. They are taken to Crimea, Russia, Belarus and even South Ossetia, supposedly for recovery or for rest in camps.
"Ukrainian President's Commissioner for Children's Rights and Their Rehabilitation Daria Kherasimchuk said that Russia is using increasingly complex scenarios to move Ukrainian children to its territory. One of them is making a false diagnosis, which the child does not actually have," writes aktualnezpravodajstvi.cz.
In addition, Russian hijackers do not hesitate to use other methods:
- killing the parents and then taking the children to their territory;
- removing children directly from their biological family;
- separate children from their families as part of so-called filtering measures;
- creating conditions unsuitable for a child's life in the occupied territories, and then seemingly voluntarily offering parents to send their children to the so-called convalescent stays or vacations from which they do not return home.
Between February 24, 2022, the Russians forcibly removed around 20,000 Ukrainian children. At least hundreds of children from the occupied Ukrainian Crimea, deported and illegally adopted by Russian citizens under the “Train of Hope” program can be added to this figure. between 2014 and 2022. These are only official statistics that reflect registered cases of child abduction. Actual figures may be much higher. Currently, Ukraine has managed to return only 387 children out of the mentioned 20,000... And what about the rest? What awaits them?
Ukrainian children are often given new names, placed in foster families, resettled in remote, economically backward regions of the Russian Federation, and everything is done to prevent them from returning home. Russia is trying to improve its demographic situation by forcibly exporting Ukrainian children. As a rule, the children are taken to those regions of the Russian Federation where the Slavic population is dying out, or to economically neglected regions - Chechnya, Chuvashia, Siberia and the Far East.
In the Russian Federation, Ukrainian children are subjected to propaganda processing, they are instilled with hatred for Ukraine and instilled in them false values of the “Russian world”. They are taken not only to the territory of Russia, but also to Belarus, where at least four so-called recovery camps.
Among the children deported to Russia and the young generation in the occupied territories of Ukraine, the Kremlin is doing its “black“ work. Russia has created an extensive system of "militarization" of stolen Ukrainian children and preparing them for war, including engaging in further aggression against Ukraine. The Kremlin “educators“ actively work with Ukrainian children from 4 to 5 years of age and use Russian propaganda to erase their national identification. This happens in kindergartens and schools, and corresponding work is organized in extracurricular education. The Russians create a reality for children in which they are shown that they must die "for Russia". Large funds are allocated for special "patriotic" programs, especially in Crimea. The Church also participates in the process of “militarization” of children, where special religious events are held under the control of the occupation authorities (there are examples of the “consecration“ of a missile, which was then used to bomb Ukraine, in the presence of children).
"Let us recall that the deportation of Ukrainian children was the reason why the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant on March 17, 2023 for the Russian President's Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, and for Vladimir Putin himself." , also writes aktualnezpravodajstvi.cz.
More sanctions should be imposed on the terrorist state and it should be completely isolated internationally – it would be a logical step in response to the kidnappings it legalized. Every Ukrainian child must be returned home and Russia must be held accountable to the law for every case of illegal human trafficking, for its crimes against Ukraine.