Lavrov said that about 300 Ukrainian children were placed in Russian families

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, said that about 300 children from orphanages, taken out of the occupied territories of Ukraine, were placed in Russian families.

According to him, these children were not adopted, but given to “temporary, preliminary guardianship”.

“This form was chosen specifically for that, taking into account the fact that parents may show up and, of course, these parents will have every opportunity to pick up their children if they are interested in it,” Lavrov said.

In total, according to the minister, more than 700 thousand children entered Russia since the beginning of the war. “Only 2,000 are pupils of orphanages of the DPR and LPR who were evacuated together with the staff and educators of these institutions,” Lavrov said.

As “Important Histories” previously wrote with reference to the report on the activities of the government of the Rostov region for 2022, the Russian authorities could transfer 1,184 children from Ukraine to “preliminary custody”. This is three times more than what was publicly stated by the Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.

• International law considers the violent removal of children from occupied territories a crime.
• On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. The court statement states that they are suspected of illegally deporting children from Ukraine. The decision of the International Court of Justice was supported by the USA, most of the EU countries and Ukraine.