Russia could take 2.5 thousand orphans from Ukraine

About two and a half thousand orphaned children or those left without parental care could be taken to Russia since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is stated in the investigation of the “Important Histories” publication. The publication studied the data bank of orphans for whom the Russian authorities are looking for guardians or adoptive parents. In 2022, significantly more children appeared in it than in previous years, Sibir.Realii reports.

The publication calculated that in 2022, in 21 regions of Russia, including the northern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, the number of children registered in the orphan database increased. The total number of such children last year was 2,450 more than the average for the previous six years. According to “Important Histories”, the largest number of orphans grew up in the Rostov Region, which borders Ukraine, as well as in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod Region.

“Important Histories” emphasize that it is impossible to state unequivocally that all 2,450 children were deported from Ukraine. The bank, as a rule, does not say that this or that child was taken out of Ukraine. However, the publication checked the data on some children entered into the database and found out that they actually lived in the regions of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia before the invasion. Some of them lived in orphanages even before the war, some had their parents killed during the invasion.

The system does not involve searching for Ukrainian relatives of these children who could take them under guardianship. In fact, Russia does not provide children with the opportunity to stay in Ukraine.

In total, according to official Ukrainian data, about 19 thousand Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the war. Not all of them are orphans, some were taken away with their parents or live with relatives. The Russian authorities officially called the practice of evacuating the population from occupied territories evacuation.

• 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.
• Several hundred children returned to Ukraine – as a rule, we are talking about children who were sent to camps on the territory of Russia with the consent of their parents and then left there after the change of the front line. The Russian authorities give such children to their parents, but they demand that they come to pick them up personally, which in war conditions may be very difficult.