31 children previously taken to the Russian Federation returned to Ukraine

31 children from the Kherson and Kharkiv regions returned to Ukraine on Saturday, after the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion, which had been taken to Russia or to Ukrainian territories controlled by Russia. This was reported by the Save Ukraine fund and its director Mykola Kuleba.

“After several months of separation, they will be reunited with their families,” the foundation said in a statement. The children returned accompanied by their relatives. According to Kuleba, with each similar mission organized by the foundation, the duration of interrogations by the FSB, to which the relatives who came to pick up the children are subjected, increases.

According to Kuleba, 33 children were supposed to return to the country, but the grandmother of two children died during the trip. Now the fund will look for an opportunity to return her body and children to Ukraine, which she was supposed to take.

No other details are given.

In previous similar cases of the return of children to Ukraine, as a rule, we were talking about children who, with the consent of their parents, were temporarily taken by the Russian authorities to camps on the territory of Russia or the annexed Crimea in the summer and autumn of last year. During their stay in the camps, there was a counteroffensive by Ukraine, during which the territories where they lived returned to Ukrainian control. The Russian authorities require that in such cases their parents or relatives come to pick up the children, which in wartime conditions is associated with great difficulties. Until the arrival of the parents, the children remain in Russian-controlled territories.

After the previous group of children returned to Ukraine, some of them told about the beatings and bullying they were subjected to by their teachers.

Thousands of Ukrainian children who were left without parental care were also taken from the occupied territories to Russia. The authorities of Ukraine call the movement of children across the country’s border by forced deportation. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague agreed with this assessment, the court issued an arrest warrant for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the Commissioner for Child Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, in connection with the deportation of Ukrainian children. The Russian authorities claim that by taking away the children, they are saving them from shelling. At the same time, cases of adoption of such children were reported in Russia, which directly contradicts international conventions.

• In total, according to the Ukrainian authorities, during the war, more than 16 thousand children were illegally transported from the territory of the country to the territory of Russia and the annexed Crimea. Many of them, as reported, are forcibly “re-educated”, some are taught to shoot and use equipment. So far, about 350 children have been reunited with their families.

• Since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed the death of 467 children. More than 900 were wounded. These are not circumstantial data. According to the UN, more than 8,000 Ukrainian civilians died after February 24 – these are only documented cases, the real figures are above.