Thousands of children have been victims of the policy of forced deportation promoted by Russian forces in the Ukrainian areas under their control, and for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin on Friday as a maximum responsible for that campaign.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar charges.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, international organizations have accused the Russian authorities of orchestrating the “forced displacement” of thousands of Ukrainian minors.
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According to a report by Yale University, from “February 2022 to January 2023, more than 6,000 young people between the ages of four months and 17 years have been transferred” and installed in 43 detention and re-education facilities in Russia.
The girls wanted to go, they were very excited about the program
In all cases, “fathers and mothers have been forced, deceived with the promise of a temporary transfer or not questioned at all, and the forms were filled out with false signatures,” the report highlights.
‘La Nación’ was able to feel this drama a month ago in the city of Kherson, occupied by Russian forces from the beginning of the invasion until last November, when it was recaptured by Ukrainian forces.
There Svetlana, a 35-year-old woman, said that she has not seen her two daughters, aged 15 and 12, Yana and Yara, since October 7.when they theoretically went on vacation for two weeks to a campus that the Russians had offered them to do in the Crimea, from which they never returned.
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“During the occupation it was hard. I had no money, we were locked up at home and the girls, from September to October went to school, where they began to give only Russian programs. They also changed the currency, from Ukrainian hryvnias to Russian rubles, we no longer had a Ukrainian connection but could only watch Russian television, receive Russian propaganda, Russian flags were flying and if they found you on the phone a patriotic Ukrainian song, a flag or something like that, it was a problem”, he recalled. Then came the proposal.
“The girls wanted to go, they were very excited about the program. Crimea is a very beautiful place. There they had the uncle, my older brother Vasil, who lives there, so I accepted the proposal and they left, ”she said during the interview.
Desperate and already in contact with NGOs that are trying to help her get her daughters back, Svetlana said that they had told her that they were going to stay for two weeks, that they were postponing and it has now been more than five months.
Although he said that he talks to his girls on the phone every day and apparently they are in a boarding school where they go to school, eat well, treat them well, study – at least that’s what they say in controlled conversations -, Their great fear is that the Russians will give them up for adoption to another family because they have been told that they cannot be without their parents for more than six months.
When the Russians withdrew from Kherson last November, Svetlana received a text message offering her to go to Russia, as some pro-Russian Khersons did. “But I rejected that offer because I love Ukraine, it is my land and I want to live here and have my daughters back to me,” said this devastated woman.
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He never saw his girls again who, in a modus operandi denounced as another war crime, suffered a virtual deportation. Similar to what many other young Ukrainians suffered, now exposed to the international community by the ICC.
The Nation (Argentina) / GDA
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