The Russian army transports children to Russia on a large scale under the guise of vacation or adoption. This is confirmed by Russian media. Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, has admitted that she recently adopted a child from Mariupol. Subsequently, the children receive a ‘patriotic upbringing’.
It was previously known that Russia is sending Ukrainian children to Russia for a so-called holiday, followed by forced adoption by Russian families. “There are credible reports of Ukrainian children being separated from their parents and deported to Russia for rapid naturalization and adoption,” Ilze Brands Kehris, head of the United Nations Human Rights Agency in New York, said in September. .
However, the exact number of resettled children is unknown. Russia does not give figures. Ukrainian authorities say they do not have an accurate count, but estimate the number of children in the thousands. In fact, it is about deportations and international conventions are being violated.
Russia claims that these are orphans, but that is often not the case at all. For example, Ania (14) told ‘The New York Times’ that she was taken to Russia against her will and placed with a foster family. However, she still has a mother in Ukraine.
Russian citizen
Through interviews with parents, officials, doctors and children in Ukraine and Russia, The New York Times has identified several children who had been taken. Some were able to return home. Others, like Anya, are stuck in Russia. The teenage girl has said that her Russian foster family treated her well, but that she longed to return to Ukraine. But she said she would soon become a Russian citizen. “I don’t want that,” Ania said. “My friends and family are not here.”
What is new is that Russian media are openly talking about it and that the Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner now admits these practices. Maria Lvova-Belova, who is on the Western sanctions list, is responsible for the transfer of the Ukrainian children and has said that she herself adopted a boy from Mariupol.
Homesickness
She said the boy was initially homesick and even attended a demonstration in support of Ukraine. “He longed for the house he grew up in, friends and his dear Mariupol,” she wrote on Telegram. “But the kids have quickly come to appreciate their new home,” she reported.
At the end of September, Lvova-Belova said that 30 (orphaned) children from Mariupol with a previously negative view of Russia and Vladimir Putin had changed their minds. After the children were adopted by Russian families, she says their attitude towards Russia changed dramatically and they “stopped saying all kinds of nasty things and singing the Ukrainian hymn”.
More than 350 orphans from the self-proclaimed ‘people’s republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk have been adopted in Russia, with a further 1,000 waiting to be adopted, Russian news site RBC reports.
“All parents who want to adopt a child can do so according to the established procedure. We can help organize meetings or, for example, bring children to Russia, as the situation on the ground is turbulent, so not every family will be able to go there to meet a child,” said Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner.
Russia apparently knows no end, as she added that children’s rights commissioners will soon be established in the (self-declared) people’s republics, as well as in the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.
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