The children had been taken to Russia from the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. Since the start of the conflict, kyiv estimates that 16,000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped, Moscow says it has “saved” them from the fighting.
Thirty-one children have returned to Ukraine after being illegally taken to Russia from territories occupied by Moscow, the NGO Save Ukraine announced on social media on Saturday.
“Today we welcome 31 more children to their homes who were illegally taken by Russians from occupied territories,” wrote Mykola Kuleba, an official of the NGO.
These children had been taken to Russia from the regions of Kharkiv and Kherson, detailed the association whose main mission is to fight what it describes as “deportations” of Ukrainian children.
The border crossed on foot
According to the NGO, the children carrying suitcases and bags crossed the border on foot on Friday, with relatives, then boarded a bus to continue their journey.
Mykola Kuleba hailed the “heroic mothers” who came to pick up their children and said it was the “most difficult” mission the NGO had to carry out so far.
An elderly woman who was to bring back two grandchildren died on this occasion of “stress”, he lamented, specifying on Facebook that the Ukrainian women had been subjected by the Russian security services (FSB) to “interrogation 1 p.m.”.
About 16,000 children “kidnapped” according to kyiv
Authorities in Kyiv estimate that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been “kidnapped” and taken to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, with many believed to have been placed in foster homes.
Moscow denies these allegations, claiming to have “saved” Ukrainian children by keeping them away from the fighting and to have put in place procedures to reunite them with their families.
On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a historic arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, “allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation” of Ukrainian minors “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
The Hague-based tribunal has also issued an international arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s commissioner, on similar grounds.
