Thousands of children are said to have been brought to Russia from Ukraine. The Russian side speaks of convalescent stays or medical treatment, the Ukraine of deportations. The children are to be brought back with international help.
Ukraine is seeking international help to repatriate thousands of children who Kiev says have been kidnapped to Russia. There are at least 11,000 children whose names are known, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his evening video address. "But those are just the ones we know about. In fact, more have been abducted."
The head of the President's Office in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, had previously discussed the problem in a large online conference. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the ambassadors of the Group of Twenty large industrialized and emerging countries (G20) also took part. The annual G20 summit is currently taking place in Indonesia. "Our goal is to stop the violent kidnapping or deportation of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation," said Yermak, according to official statements. Everything must be done to bring these children back and reunite them with their families.
The Russian military and Russian authorities do confirm that children are being brought to Russia from Ukraine. They would be taken to safety from the combat zones or come to Russia for treatment or recovery. There are also reports of Ukrainian children being put up for adoption in Russia. The Ukrainian child rights officer Dariya Gerassymtschuk spoke of 10,764 abducted children. Selenskyj thanked Guterres for his willingness to take on the issue of the children. "It takes the power of the whole world to bring back all the deportees," he said.
There have been reports of abductions for a long time, as Carlo Masala recently explained in the "Stern" podcast "Ukraine - the situation". According to the political scientist, who conducts research at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, after the annexations that violate international law, Russia will try to replace the population in the occupied territories. "We've been seeing children being kidnapped to Russia for the first few weeks. It all boils down to the Russification of these areas," said the military expert.
