Ukraine’s stolen children

Translated by Angela Tagliafierro

Last week, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asked the Russian Government to stop relocating minors from the occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia and let them come back home to their families. As a matter of fact, according to the Ukrainian authorities, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, for two years now, 20,000 children are estimated to have been relocated to Russia. At least, these are the cases Kyiv managed to provide documentary evidence of: it is feared that they might be much more.

After all, the Russian officials never hid these transfers. They even suggested many numbers: in the last months, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for the Rights of the Child Maria L'vova-Belova talked about 4.8 million of Ukrainian people relocated to Russia, among them there are 700,000 minors.

The Committee’s charges

Last week the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, composed of 18 independent experts charged of monitoring the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, made its final considerations about Russia public. Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice-president of the Committee, presented the results of the work of the experts, and highlighted the proof of woundings and killings of hundreds of children because of the usage of explosives and the “indiscriminate attacks” Ukraine is undergoing.

The other worrying aspect deals with the relocation of the Ukrainian children to Russia, which violates the mentioned Convention. Thousands of minors were moved and, as Gudbransson stated, in some cases they are deprived of the Ukrainian citizenship.

According to the Committee, some legislative steps seem to suggest the attempts to make this minors “Russian”: last January 04^th, the President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree to fasten the process of naturalisation of the citizens relocated to Russia.

The representatives of the Russian Government denied all the accusations when questioned by the Committee, and they stated to have moved around 700,000 minors for their safety.

On the contrary, investigative reports and witnesses, emerged already in the last months, propose that what the Russian Government is actually doing is far different from protecting the minors. For almost two years in Russia, a systematic and well-organised program of "re-education" has been in progress, aiming to cancel the Ukrainian identity.

The witnesses: those who came back from Russia

The minors involved in these relocations are considered orphans, often because of the war. In many cases, the Russian authorities may have gained the consent by the parents, who agreed to move them to Russia for a short amount of time. They wished to protect their children from the war and guarantee them food and care. However, only a few of them succeeded in coming back home: it is only 400 young people, as compared to the 20,000 people documented by the Ukrainian authorities.

Veronika, one of them, told the Guardian her experience of 14 months in Russia. Born and raised in Kharkiv, two weeks after the Russian invasion she crossed the borders with her aunt; later, she was separated from her and entrusted to an institute for children in the Russian city of Lipetsk. “I was told that Ukraine does not exist, it never existed, we are all Russian”, told the girl, who was twelve at that moment. Rotislav, a seventeen-year-old guy from Kherson, also told a similar experience about a year spent in Crimea. “In the morning we were woken up by the Russian anthem”, says Rotislav, “and, once up, we must sing it all together”.

The thousands of minors who are still in Russia include children whose names were changed and were adopted by Russian families. This made tracing them to bring them home more difficult. This is what happened to Margarita, a ten-month baby girl who, according to an investigation report by BBC, has been adopted by a Russian politician, Sergei Mironov. Now the baby has a new ID card and a new name, Marina.

The international capture warrant

Last March, the International Penal Court promulgated a capture warrant against the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Presidential Commissioner for the Rights of the Child Maria Alekseyevna L'vova-Belova because of these episodes. Both of them are charged with being responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian minors to Russia.

According to the CPI Prosecutor Chief, Karim Ahmad Khan, the forced relocations of part of the population of an occupied nation by the attackers may be considered like war crimes. Not only: this crime would be the first step to an accusation of genocide. Because kidnapping and moving minors is one of those acts included in the definition of war crime, like the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) states. There was also the Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, who reminded that now “time” is the first enemy for these children: the longer they are in Russia, the longer they will be exposed to the propaganda and the “re-education”. Indeed, this is Vladimir Putin’s strategy: to steal the Ukrainian future, to steal Ukraine’s children.

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