Dmytro Lubinets, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada, announced that the deportation of 19,540 Ukrainian children by Russia has been officially confirmed. Lubinec shared this information during the international human rights conference "Freedom or Fear."
"At the moment, there is a figure of over 19,540 officially confirmed deported Ukrainian children. If we were to return one child every day, it would take us 55 years. And this is against the backdrop that the Russian Federation continues to deport new groups of Ukrainian children from the territory of our state every day," Lubinec said.
According to the ombudsman, despite the limited tools available, the Ukrainian authorities have many initiatives and are constantly seeking new ways to address the return of abducted children.
In the context of the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation, there is a mass deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. They are transported to the occupied Crimea, Russia, or Belarus, ostensibly for recuperation or relaxation in camps.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the authorized representative for children's rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
On May 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during a briefing in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, stated that there is accurate information about more than 19,300 children deported by Russians. On May 29, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada, Dmytro Lubinec, spoke at an informal UN Security Council meeting on the issue of Russia abducting children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. Lubinec revealed that Russia intentionally changes legislation to prevent the return of Ukrainian children to their homeland, including forcibly changing their citizenship to Russian.
Lubinec also noted that Russia provides no information about deported Ukrainian children— their whereabouts and conditions are unknown. He also mentioned that Russians exploit child labor and militarize Ukrainian children in temporarily occupied territories.
On June 8, the U.S. Senate committee supported a resolution condemning the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia, labeling the actions of the occupiers as genocide. Later, evidence emerged implicating Belarus in the deportation of Ukrainian children. On June 27, the Belarusian opposition handed over evidence of involvement in war crimes by self-proclaimed leader Alexander Lukashenko and his circle to the International Criminal Court.
The State Duma of the Russian Federation claimed that since 2014, 700,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia.
On July 13, the Center for National Resistance reported that during the month of July 2023, Russians transported approximately 280 children from the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to the Russian Republic of Kalmykia.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged UN member states to unite and compel Russia to return Ukrainian children to their parents, taken against their will to Russia during the war. In the U.S. Senate, a call was made for the White House to impose sanctions against individuals involved in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and their unlawful adoption.
On July 29, the British Ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, stated that Russians are abducting Ukrainian children with the aim of eradicating the next generation of defenders of Ukraine.
On July 31, the Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, claimed that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has "accepted" around 4.8 million residents of Ukraine, with over 700,000 being children.
Dmytro Lubinec, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada, emphasized that Lvova-Belova's statement serves as direct evidence for the International Criminal Court.
On August 1, the U.S. State Department called on Russia to cease the deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and to return those taken away back home.
