(Doha) Russian Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova announced on Wednesday an agreement with Kyiv, mediated by Qatar, to exchange around fifty children displaced by the war, information that the delegate did not confirm. Ukrainian.
Mme Lvova-Belova, who like Russian President Vladimir Putin is under arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for the alleged “deportation” to Russia of thousands of Ukrainian children, told the press that a agreement had been obtained during “negotiations with the Ukrainian side” concerning 48 children.
“As a result, 29 children will return to Ukraine and 19 to Russia,” she added.
But, also in Doha for talks with Qatari mediators, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Ukrainian Parliament Dmytro Lubinets declared that he “could not confirm this information”.
Russian and Ukrainian officials “have no direct contact on this,” he added.
Since July 2023, Qatar has helped repatriate dozens of Ukrainian children who had been transferred to Russia and territories under Russian occupation since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, declared on Wednesday that sixteen Ukrainian children, previously taken to Russia, were thanks to previous exchanges in Qatar “for medical, mental and social care” in the company of their loved ones.
400 out of 20,000 according to Kyiv
“All had been forcibly transferred to Russia, but thanks to the mediation efforts of friendly Qatar, they were released and reunited with their families,” he said, without commenting on the Russian claim of new exchange.
Ukraine estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian minors have been deported in two years to Russia or the occupied territories, although the total could be much higher, as this figure only concerns officially identified children.
According to Kyiv, just under 400 of them have so far been repatriated.
In the spring of 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova for their direct involvement in the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia since February 2022.
These accusations have been repeatedly rejected by the Russian authorities, who claim to protect the children from the fighting and say they are ready to hand over the children to their relatives in Ukraine if they request it.
They also explained that they had put in place a special program when the children arrived, some of whom were sent to camps where the emphasis was on patriotic education.
Although Russia is not a member of the ICC, Mr. Putin is hampered in his international travel by this threat of arrest abroad.