In Russia, it has become common to abduct Ukrainian children, and the aggressor country has launched a PR campaign to support this. This was reported by Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets during a press conference in Ivano-Frankivsk.
"Russian authorities have started a PR campaign where it has become fashionable to steal a Ukrainian child... We have begun receiving information that representatives from the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the government, and regional leaders have started looking for Ukrainian children for so-called 'adoption'," Lubinets said.
He noted that the first public case of Ukrainian child abduction was the story of Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova, who took a boy from Mariupol into her family. The next case involved Russian State Duma deputy Sergey Mironov, who ended up with two Ukrainian children in his family.
This information was revealed by the Ukrainian side, Lubinets added, as repeated attempts to return these children from the Russian politician's family had not led to a positive outcome.
"We have witnessed a complete and finished criminal act of abducting two Ukrainian children. Their surnames were changed. Margarita Prokopenko became Marina Mironova. Her place of birth and birth certificate were altered… As for the boy, Ilya, who was taken with Margarita, after being examined in Moscow and found to have a disease, we suspect that the Mironov family decided to abandon him because he is ill. However, we cannot establish what happened to the boy or where he was transferred," Lubinets said.
He emphasized that the Ukrainian side is currently negotiating with partners regarding the return of other Ukrainian children who have been abducted and are living with Russian officials' families.
