Since the start of the war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children have reportedly been displaced to Russia or Russian-controlled territories. The Russian state has put in place institutional policies facilitating their arrival, assimilation and even adoption by Russian families. A practice qualified as genocidal by the Ukrainian authorities, but presented by the Russian government as being a humanitarian act.
As of February 20, the cases of 16,207 deported or forcibly displaced children have been officially documented by the Ukrainian government. “But we know that these figures will be much higher when we have access to the territories currently occupied [par les forces russes]mentioned in Duty Daria Gerasymchuk, Commissioner to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation. “We understand that there are hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children” who are now in Russia, she says.
A reality that Russia does not hide — quite the contrary. The Russian authorities welcome this large influx of minors – whether or not accompanied by adults – on its territory. On January 9, a dispatch from the Russian news agency Tass indicated that Russia had received more than 5.1 million Ukrainians since the start of the war, including more than 728,000 children. On August 16, Russian Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Management Center, rejoiced that 25,501 Ukrainians, including 14,242 children, had been evacuated to Russia in that single day, ” despite the difficulties and obstacles created by the Kiev regime,” reports another dispatch from Tass.
Figures which are however not credible in the eyes of the Ukrainian government, since they are inflated. “Before the start of the invasion, approximately one million children lived in this territory. [actuellement occupé par les forces russes] and at least half of these children had left the region with their parents [en raison des affrontements] “says Daria Gerasymchuk. Although she says she is convinced that far more than 16,207 Ukrainian children have been forcibly moved or deported to Russia, the exaggeration of the Russian authorities “is more proof that you cannot believe what the Russians say “, she denounces.
While Russia claims it is saving these children from war, the Ukrainian commissioner claims that these are in no way charitable acts. “You have to understand that these are not evacuations or rescue operations, these are child abductions, she thunders. And Russia gives us no information — neither to us nor to international organizations — about the identity of these children, the places where they are and their conditions. To date, only 307 children have been repatriated to Ukraine out of the 16,207 cases officially listed on the government website Children of War. The duty was able to document the Kafkaesque struggle of a father who managed to bring his two children back to Ukraine (see other text).
Adoptions
Interview requests from Duty to the Russian authorities remained unanswered. But numerous information made public by the Russian government or by official representatives of Russia shed light on the situation.
On May 30, President Vladimir Putin adopted a decree facilitating the adoption of Ukrainian children and offering them a simplified process for obtaining Russian nationality. Since then, a few hundred Ukrainian children have reportedly been adopted by Russian families.
In a report available on the Kremlin website of a meeting held last Thursday between President Putin and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights to the President of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, the latter stated that “my favorite part of my job — thanks to you, thank you very much — is placing these children [des régions de Donetsk, Louhansk, Zaporijjia et Kherson] in families [russes] “. Ukrainian children have been taken in by families from 19 regions of Russia, she said.
Maria Lvova-Belova also regularly posts patriotic photos, videos and comments on her Telegram account praising the arrival on Russian soil of Ukrainian children. On September 16, under a video showing dozens of children from Donetsk, smiling and getting off a bus and a plane, she evokes “the tears of joy of adults and children who will become a family”. On August 5, she writes that 104 children living in Luhansk orphanages are in the process of being adopted by Russian families. On July 4, she publishes photos of her with teenagers from Mariupol, hosted in Moscow, whom she takes shopping.
They planned it all. The Russian Federation had a clear plan of what it would do from the start of the attack.
Herself the mother of 5 biological children and guardian of 17 other children, Maria Lvova-Belova adopted, with her husband, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, a 15-year-old teenager from Mariupol, named Philip. On August 19, Ottawa placed the 38-year-old woman on the Canadian government’s sanctioned list for her role in moving children from Ukraine to Russia.
Protection
Since the start of the war, Russian propaganda has presented these transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia as humanitarian gestures. Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the role of his commissioner on September 16 when the United States in turn placed her on the list of people sanctioned. “It is only natural that she evacuates children from combat zones and dangerous areas of Donbass. What’s wrong with that? he wondered, according to a dispatch from the Tass news agency.
On July 21, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also vigorously rejected accusations that Russia is forcibly moving children to its territory, claiming that these population movements are “voluntary” and that Ukrainians, both children and adults, take refuge in Russia to “find protection” there.
In her statement available on the ministry’s website, Maria Zakharova recalls that the Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees minors the right to life, protection against all forms of violence, housing, education, etc “Russia helps the children of Donbass to exercise these rights,” she said.
Five scenarios
After collecting testimonies, the Ukrainian authorities drew up five scenarios by which children were taken to Russia or to territories controlled by Russia. In a first scenario, children whose parents were killed during the war, particularly in Mariupol, were deported or forcibly moved. Others were taken directly from their families, for example when older brothers, older sisters or even grandparents cared for children in the occupied territories.
In a third case, children have been separated from their parents in filtration camps, where tight interrogations and searches are carried out by the Russian authorities. Several parents, residing in the occupied territories, have meanwhile accepted that their children leave the country to stay in Russian holiday camps or to obtain health care in Russia (see other text). And finally, children who lived in institutions, including in Mariupol, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, were moved in groups to territories controlled by Russia.
acts of genocide
“They planned it all out. The Russian Federation had a clear plan on what it would do since the start of the attack,” denounces Daria Gerasymchuk, who claims that these practices violate international law. Transfers of children were also documented in 2014 during the annexation of Crimea and the start of the Russian occupation of part of Donbass. According to the Ukrainian commissioner, these are acts of genocide, since children are forcibly moved to Russia and their nationality is changed, she criticizes.
In interview at Duty, the general secretary of Amnesty International, the Frenchwoman Agnès Callamard, also denounces “the organized aspect of these deportations”. Based on a report that her organization has produced on cases of “illegal transfer or deportation”, she urges the International Criminal Court to investigate the subject. “The deportations are so well organized with this bureaucratic or ‘legal’ element brought by Russian law that we suspect that it is ultimately a crime against humanity”, she drops.