Kyiv.
Around 11,000 Ukrainian children are said to have been kidnapped to Russia – to be re-educated there. Few return.
Should Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ever face the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the main issue will not be about the war of aggression against Ukraine – but about around 11,000 children who, according to Ukrainian information, have been kidnapped to Russia since the beginning of the invasion, released for adoption and re-educated.
In international criminal law, this is considered war crimes. And it is an indication that Putin is actually concerned with the destruction of Ukrainian culture, with the genocide of the people.
“It’s not only about forced deportations, but also about illegal adoptions and the theft of children,” says activist Olha Reshetylova, who works for the “Media Initiative for Human Rights”. Children from residential facilities are particularly affected – not only orphans, but also children whose parents live in Ukraine or in Russian captivity.
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Very often the parents were deliberately deceived by their children “Rehabilitation Holidays” were invited. If the parents agreed to the offer, the children suddenly disappeared. Only a few managed to negotiate them freely again. Even more targeted is the crackdown on children whose parents serve in the Ukrainian army or who were targeted by the occupying forces during one of the Russian filtrations in the territories annexed by Russia.
It often affects children who have lost contact with their parents.
Such filtrations practically everyone who wants to move freely there has to put up with it. Each person is screened for a possible pro-Ukrainian stance: their mobile phone, social media profile, even their orifices. According to reports, minors were interrogated for hours or tortured for making unwelcome remarks in chat rooms.
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Often it also affects children who are already before the Russian Invasion were in nursing homes or who lost contact with their parents in the course of hostilities. Olha Reshetylova tells that the children were taken to Russian homes or sanatoriums, where they were only allowed to speak Russian and were indoctrinated in Russian patriotism.
What happens to them after that is unclear. So far it has only one in Russia adopted boy brought back home: A 16-year-old boy who got hold of a mobile phone and secretly contacted the Ukrainian authorities.
ISW: “Ethnic cleansing” in the public eye
The latest report by an independent investigative commission of the UN Human Rights Commissioner procrastination a whole chapter of children. Accordingly, it is in many respects a “war crime” and there is great fear that these kidnapped children will be kept in Russia permanently. The Kremlin recently expanded the legal framework to make it easier for Russian families to adopt Ukrainian children and grant them Russian citizenship.
Also the renowned Institute for War Studies (ISW) in the USA sees in Russia’s actions indications of a Russian depopulation campaign, which is tantamount to “ethnic cleansing” – in the eyes of the Russian public and with the corresponding rhetoric of Russian state propaganda.
It says that unteachable Ukrainian children should be drowned in the river, burned alive or simply shot.
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According to the Russian interpretation, of course, it is different. All people who came to Russia from Ukraine are war refugees. Although Moscow has actually opened humanitarian corridors from combat zones, these almost exclusively lead to Russian-controlled territory.
At the same time, the Kremlin does not try to embellish it. The Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, described on Russian TV how pleased she was that the Ukrainian Kinder are no longer so stubborn and sing the Russian anthem instead of their home country.
Chechnya’s regional rulers Ramzan Kadyrov explained that children from Ukraine received “military-patriotic education” under his care. And at Putin’s appearance on the anniversary of the war, he was celebrated by children from the completely destroyed Mariupol.
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Astrid Reisinger-Coracini, a specialist in international law at the university, says that if children are forcibly transferred to another group, this is a fact of the genocide convention Wien. However, the decisive question in the legal assessment is whether it is a matter of intent on the part of political decision-makers to destroy a protected – national, ethical or religious – group. According to the expert, denying a political entity or cultural group the right to exist does not automatically fall under the genocide convention.
What already as offense Reisinger-Coracini says that there could be a “public call for genocide” – precisely when Russian state television is discussing how unteachable Ukrainian children should be killed. TV speakers, moderators or interviewees can also be prosecuted for this. For the question of whether genocide actually occurred, however, it is ultimately relevant “how much the quotations from Russian state propaganda are also the basis for decision-making at the political level.”
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