A Belarusian opposition activist claims to have provided the International Criminal Court (ICC) with documents detailing President Alexander Lukashenko’s involvement in the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus, charges angrily denied by Minsk.
President Lukashenko has been Moscow’s closest ally, allowing the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops and weapons to Ukraine, welcoming a continued Russian military presence in Belarus and the deployment of some of the Russian tactical nuclear weapons on site.
The authoritarian leader has also agreed to a union plan that has seen Moscow and Minsk tighten economic, political and defense ties, while so far stalling before a full merger.
Pavel Latushka, Belarus’ former culture minister, said on Tuesday that documents he handed over to the ICC indicate that more than 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russian-occupied Ukrainian cities were forcibly taken to Belarus with the approval of President Lukashenko.
Warrant against Lukashenko
Mr Latushka expressed hope that the documents would prompt the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Alexander Lukashenko, as it did with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Wednesday, the court’s prosecution did not confirm receipt of the documents described by Mr. Latushka. He said in a written response to The Associated Press that he was in his “duty to protect the confidentiality of information received. Therefore, we generally do not comment on such communications.”
In March, the ICC issued warrants against President Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two men were responsible for war crimes, unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow angrily rejected the move.
“Ukrainian children, who were under the care of the Ukrainian state, including orphans, disabled children and those whose parents were deprived of their parental rights, were illegally transferred to the territory of Belarus,” said reported Mr. Latushka to The Associated Press.
“The documents handed over to prosecutors prove that Lukashenko personally signed the documents under the auspices of the so-called Union State of Russia and Belarus which formed the basis for the organization and financing of the transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus,” he added.
In an online statement published on Tuesday, Mr Latouchka’s National Anti-Lukashenko Crisis Management Group said it had gathered evidence that Ukrainian children were placed in five Belarusian summer camps and spas.
Forced “Russification”
In a telephone interview, Mr. Latushka said that the documents indicate that Ukrainian children detained in Belarusian institutions undergo ideological brainwashing and “Russification” before being sent to Russia for adoption, activities which, in his view, could constitute war crimes.
Documents posted online by the group include a video that shows a performer on stage wishing the death of US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to cheers and applause from dozens of children gathered in the audience. The same artist then expresses the wish that President Putin “prosper and take control of all of Ukraine”.
It has not been possible to independently verify the circumstances in which the video was shot or to substantiate Mr. Latushka’s other claims.
President Lukashenko on Tuesday dismissed Mr Latushka’s accusations, calling them “madness”, arguing that Belarus temporarily took in the children to help them recover from the trauma of war.
The Belarusian leader said he contacted President Putin and they agreed to fund the children’s stay in Belarus from the state budget.
“That’s how we started bringing them here,” Lukashenko said on Tuesday. We help improve their health and they leave. In fact, they don’t want to leave. »
President Lukashenko has denounced Mr Latouchka as a “scoundrel” and accused him of trying to fabricate an ICC case against him.
Mr Latushka was forced to leave Belarus under pressure from Belarusian authorities following the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in a 2020 vote that the opposition and the West have denounced as rigged. President Lukashenko, who has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for 29 years, has relied on political and financial support from Russia to brutally suppress months of major protests. ‘opposition.
Mr Latushka, who lives in self-imposed exile in Poland, said he has received an increasing number of death threats as he continues his investigation into alleged forcible transfers of children.
Four other defendants
Speaking to the AP, he accused, in addition to President Lukashenko, at least four other people of being involved in the transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus, including Dmitry Mezentsev, a senior official of the structure “of Russian-Belarusian union,” Ivan Golovaty, the head of Belaruskali, the state-owned Belarusian fertilizer exporter, Alexei Talai, the director of a government-backed charity fund, and Olga Volkova, a pro-Belarusian activist. in the partially occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Documents released by Mr. Latushka’s opposition group also include a copy of a letter signed by Mr. Mezentsev and addressed to the head of the national train operator, Russian Railways, asking him to jointly organize ” transportation of children” from the industrial east of Ukraine “for rehabilitation to brother Belarus”.
The letter, dated March 23, referred to a decision by Presidents Putin and Lukashenko to provide ‘humanitarian aid’ to children, as well as plans to resettle nearly 2,000 orphans and children living ‘in difficult conditions’. in Belarus this year. He said 1,050 miners would be transferred in April and May, with another 908 expected to follow later in the year. He also said an unknown number of minors were taken to Belarus last year as part of a state-funded joint effort by Russian and Belarusian train operators.
Any group or individual can send evidence of alleged crimes to the ICC. Prosecutors are evaluating these submissions to identify those that appear to fall within the court’s jurisdiction and warrant further action, its website explains.
Belarusian authorities have said the country will take in more than 1,000 children between the ages of 6 and 15 from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine for their “recovery”. They added that the first 350 of them arrived in Belarus in April, but did not say how long they will stay in the country.
Last month, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it had opened an investigation into the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus.
With information from Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands.