TIt all started around the time of the annexation of Crimea. The Russians set up a project called Train of Hope. A train arrived from Russia and picked up children. To bring to the Russians who wanted to adopt one. The plan continued in Ukraine. And to date the numbers of this phenomenon are only estimates. I am 19,546 i children deported to Russia according to the official portal of the Ukrainian state “Children of War“. But there could be many, many more. The Russian authorities talk about something like 700,000 Ukrainian children currently in Russia.
The hidden horror of Ukrainian children deported to Russia
What do they do with it? Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, children have been taken from hospitals, institutions and even from the streets in the conquered territories. Often with the excuse of “summer camps”. Except that once they arrived in Russia they never returned home. According to the report of Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (Humanitarian Research Laboratory of Yale University) Putin himself, with the help of Maria Lvova-Belova, president of the Commission on the Rights of the Child, even invented a pedagogical plan. The children would be subjected to “systematic re-education” through exposure “to Russocentric education.”
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. And the arrest warrant concerns the case of illegally deported Ukrainian children. Under international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group. The United Nations then stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.
Initiatives to bring them home
A special working group was created in Ukraine: the Bring Kids Back Ukraine for the creation of a legal mechanism to get them back. It’s about verify and update data relating to deported children. Document crimes committed by Russia. And “involve any country, organization or individual to join the efforts of the initiative,” as he explained Daria Zarivna. Advisor to the Chief of the Presidential Office and COO of Bring Kids Back UA, Zarivna, 34, has been working 18-hour days since Russian tanks crossed the border. A daughter of 12, the family still in Kherson, he sees the restitution of Ukrainian children kidnapped by the Russians as his mission.
«The mission is bring our children home safely, we would like them to have the possibility of living a peaceful and safe childhood in the arms of their families. The Kremlin must respond to violations of our children’s fundamental rights. But for this to happen, joint action with our allies is needed to bring children home, recognize the crimes committed and bring Russia to justice.”
For this reason, in addition to the obvious objective of reuniting Ukrainian families and restoring a childhood to children who have been torn from their homes, the objective is also to provide the ICC (International Criminal Court in The Hague) with the facts and substantiated information needed to prosecute the criminals responsible for these illegal deportations.
The DNA database to help trace families
One of the most positive and recent developments of the project, the mission to The Hague of six children returning from Russia together with some Ukrainian delegates (the Stolen Voices mission). And the approval, on the initiative of the Netherlands, of a project to trace the family members of kidnapped children using DNA. By providing rapid testing to Ukraine, a DNA database will be created that will allow children to be quickly matched with their families, speeding up their return home.
«No one in the world has the right to deprive children of a peaceful and happy childhood. Only 386 children managed to return to Ukraine and more than 19,500 children are waiting for our help. It is imperative to respond jointly and effectively to this dramatic situation,” recalled Daria Herasymchuk, Advisor and Commissioner to the President of Ukraine for Child Rights and Children’s Rehabilitation.
The appeal to governments for Ukrainian children deported to Russia
In the last hours, after a symbolic climb on Mount San Vicino, in the Marche region, organized by the ‘Together for Ukraine’ association of Fanoa letter will be sent to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for ask the Italian government to «shine a spotlight on the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to the territories temporarily occupied by Russia».
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