The forced transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia amount to “genocide”, the Council of Europe said on Thursday, in a resolution adopted by its Parliamentary Assembly which brings together deputies from 46 countries.
“The documented evidence of this practice corresponds to the international definition of genocide”, indicated in a press release the Council of Europe, after the vote of the text which “requires” the repatriation of the children.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed an “important” decision that will help “bring Russia and its officials to account”.
“The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of the considered elements of Russia’s attempt to erase the identity of our people, to destroy the very essence of Ukrainians,” he said in his evening speech. .
On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for these deportations. The Hague-based court has also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children.
Kyiv estimated in early April that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children had been “kidnapped” and taken to Russia since the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with many believed to have been placed in foster homes.
According to the resolution passed Thursday, there is “evidence” that the expelled children faced a process of “Russification” through re-education in Russian language, culture and history.
These transfers are “clearly planned and organized in a systematic way” as a state policy and are intended “to annihilate any connection and any characteristic of their Ukrainian identity”, according to the text.
The Council of Europe has also called for the UN and the Red Cross to have access to Russia to collect information on deported children, and urged states to collect evidence of crimes – including genocide – which could have been committed.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) mentions the “forcible transfer of children” among its definition criteria.
Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe, a body that serves as a human rights watchdog on the continent.