Russia is not only fighting its war against Ukraine on the battlefield. According to the government in Kiev, Ukrainian children are being systematically abducted and re-educated. According to a ZDF report, the SOS Children's Villages are also involved in this practice.
According to a report by the ZDF magazine "frontal", the international aid organization SOS Children's Villages is involved in the systematic kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russia. According to the magazine, it has pictures showing Ukrainian children being taken to the Tomilino settlement near Moscow. There they were apparently handed over to Russian foster parents.
The Tomilino settlement has been part of the SOS Children's Villages since 1990. The aid organization admitted to ZDF that it knew of 13 Ukrainian children in their villages in Russia. She also wrote: "SOS Children's Villages Russia cannot provide any information on how the children came to Russia and how they obtained Russian citizenship."
"SOS Children's Villages is against the use of children for political purposes. We do not support this and will investigate this case," the letter said, according to "frontal". The main goal of SOS Children's Villages Russia is to protect children regardless of their origin, even under extremely difficult conditions, the organization asserted. According to SOS Children's Villages Russia, it has been working in the country for more than 30 years and currently looks after more than 600 children. SOS Children's Villages are also active in the Ukraine.
According to research by "frontal", the Russian child rights officer Maria Lvova-Belova visited the SOS Children's Village Tomilino in December 2022. Your agency organizes forced adoptions of Ukrainian children with the aim of Russification, the report said. During her visit, propaganda pictures were taken showing abducted Ukrainian children. The ZDF magazine pointed out that since the war began on February 24, Ukrainian children and young people have been systematically kidnapped to Russia. Many of the children would be given up for forced adoption there and would be placed in Russian foster families. The aim is that they should forget everything Ukrainian and instead receive a pro-Russian patriotic upbringing.
In January, Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock referred to the allegations against Russia and in this context spoke of the "specific attempt to destroy a people". However, the Greens politician also said that there were no reliable facts. Russia denies the allegations.
The Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University in the US recently assumed that around 6,000 Ukrainian children were abducted to Russia, and the Ukrainian government put the number at least 14,000. There were corresponding reports of kidnappings from occupied areas in Cherson or from Mariupol, among others.
