The occupiers have taken more than 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia

The Office of the Prosecutor General is investigating the illegal removal of more than 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia and the temporarily occupied territories. As part of the investigation, 26 individuals involved in the deportation of children have already been notified of the charges against them.

This was reported in an interview by Viktoria Tsukareva, a prosecutor with the Department for the Protection of Children’s Interests and Combating Domestic Violence at the Office of the Prosecutor General.

According to her, the investigation is documenting instances of the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children both since the start of the full-scale invasion and dating back to 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Law enforcement agencies are currently verifying reports of the removal of more than 20,000 children, though this figure is not final, as thousands of minors remain in the occupied territories.

In the criminal proceedings, 26 individuals have already been notified that they are suspects. Among them are members of the Russian State Duma, Russian military personnel, heads of the occupation administrations, collaborators, and directors of children’s institutions who, according to the investigation, participated in the removal of children to Russia.

As the prosecutor noted, one of the key pieces of evidence consists of video footage and posts that representatives of the occupying authorities themselves have circulated online. Based on this evidence, investigators have already compiled over a thousand reports using the Berkeley methodology, which is used to document digital evidence.

Law enforcement officials are paying particular attention to cases of the illegal adoption of Ukrainian children by Russian families. According to Tsukareva, in one such case, a child from the Kherson region had their personal information altered after adoption and was issued a new Russian birth certificate to prevent their identification and return to Ukraine.

The prosecutor also reported that, thanks to the Ukrainian President’s “Bring Kids Back UA” initiative, more than 2,000 Ukrainian children have already been returned. At the same time, she emphasized that Russia continues its policy of forced assimilation of Ukrainian children by altering their identity, restricting education in the Ukrainian language, and imposing Russian educational standards.

As a reminder, the European Court of Human Rights has scheduled oral hearings in the case of ten Ukrainian children whom Russia effectively abducted following the occupation of Crimea in 2014. 

Андрій Колісніченко