Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk has publicly addressed the Russian Ombudsman and the Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner.
“ I propose to immediately provide the Ukrainian side with the lists of all orphans and children deprived of parental care who:
1) as of February 24th, 2022, were citizens of Ukraine, up to and including the age of 18;
2) currently reside in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine;
3) have been transferred from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian territory, ” the official said in a statement posted on her social media.
As foreign researchers and journalists have found out, Russians were taking orphans out of Ukraine and offering them for adoption to Russian citizens.
It should be noted that Russians do not hide their crimes. In particular, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights publicly adopted a Ukrainian orphan boy. This was despite the fact that the child’s name was on the list of orphans whom Ukraine demanded to return.
Today, the return of deported children is one of the priorities of the Office of the President and the Office of the Prosecutor General.
We are reminding that on March 18th, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Russian Federation. They are suspected of committing a war crime of illegal deportation and transfer of children from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.