Nebenzya said that the Russian Federation will return the children to Ukraine when it is safe

Russia’s representative at the UN, Vasyl Nebenzya, said that by removing the children from the territory of Ukraine, the Russian authorities wanted to “protect them from the danger that military actions can bring”, and that they are ready to return them to Ukraine when the conditions are safe.

“Of course, why not,” answered Nebenzya when asked if Russia would return the children. The TASS agency gives the answer.

According to Nebenza, Russia wants to hold an informal meeting of the UN Security Council at the beginning of April, at which it intends to demonstrate that “the issue of children forcibly sent to Russia is completely inflated.”

Nebenzya made comments in connection with the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Friday for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of illegal deportation of children from the territory of Ukraine to Russia. The court is not a body of the UN, but more than half of the member states of the organization participate in its work.

The accusations are based on the fact that the Russian authorities, after the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of last year, took orphaned children or those left without parental care from the occupied regions of Ukraine to Russia, without the consent of the Ukrainian authorities or relatives of such children. In addition, it was reported that in the annexed Crimea and a number of regions of Russia, children who went there with the consent of their parents are kept in children’s camps – however, now the parents cannot take them back.

Back in May of last year, Putin signed a decree on simplifying the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian children, which opens the way to their adoption in Russia. Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights, said at a recent meeting with Putin that “thanks to him” she adopted a 15-year-old boy from Mariupol. According to Lvova-Belova, for whose arrest the Hague Court also issued a warrant, hundreds of children from Ukraine are now placed in families in Russia. If you take Nebenza’s words literally, he admitted that he was talking about Ukrainian children and promised to return them to the country – that is, he recognized the temporary nature of their stay in Russia.

• On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered the start of a so-called special military operation against Ukraine. It was a large-scale invasion. Before its beginning, there were no military operations in the areas from which children were taken to Russia, in particular in Mariupol, and therefore no danger to children.