Russian authorities have announced that 20 children from the Kherson Oblast have been sent to a children's camp in Russia. However, children are sent for an indefinite period of time.
Russians are kidnapping Ukrainian children on a large scale
Russians kidnap Ukrainian children from the Kherson region. They can go to a children's camp. According to Ukrainska Pravda, 20 more children were kidnapped by Russians in the Kherson region. Occupation authorities say that children are sent to camps where they can rest and recuperate. However, as Ukrainska Pravda reports, children are sent for an indefinite period of time.
During the occupation of Kherson, the Russians took Ukrainian children to Moscow. Children from the occupied city were also deported to other areas occupied by the Russians. According to the Ukrainian website Slidstvo Info, local collaborators helped with kidnapping the children. In an interview for the portal, one of the employees of the Kherson hospital recalls that her colleagues united and hid all the expensive medical equipment from the Russians. When the forced evacuation of the population from Kherson to Russia began, the Russians demanded from the hospital a list of children staying there with information about their health condition.
The Russians were very interested in the orphans staying in the Kherson Regional Children's Hospital. Natalya Lyutikova, head of the infant treatment department, tells journalists that a woman from Moscow visited her, accompanied by the director of the Children's Home, and asked to see her two children.
At the same time, the director of the Children's Home called and asked if I could discharge the children? I said no, because the children's condition was assessed as moderate. Since then, a woman from Moscow called me every day and said that these children had been selected to be transported to the Russian capital," Lutikova recalls.
During a full-scale invasion, the Kremlin deports Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. They are taken to occupied Crimea, Russia or Belarus, allegedly for rehabilitation or rest in camps. In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that it was known for certain that the Russians had deported over 19,300 kids.
On June 8, the United States supported a draft resolution condemning the kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russia and calling the Russians' actions genocide. Evidence later emerged that Belarus was involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
Dmytro Lubinets, Human Rights Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, said in an interview for Ukrinform that the leader of Belarus, Oleksandr Lukashenko, is involved in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
It's happening right now. Almost every week we receive new confirmation that the Belarusian authorities are participating in this process. Of course, we want their actions analyzed and condemned.
Since March, when the Coordination Headquarters for the Protection of Children's Rights under Martial Law was established in Ukraine, a total of 386 minors were returned to Ukraine from Russia.