The research group Conflict Observatory collects evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. According to the report they have published, the real number of missing children is probably much higher than the 6,000 that have been identified. They are also said to have identified at least 43 camps and other Russian facilities where Ukrainian children have been staying, which were part of a systematic network on a large scale. The children must be between four months and 17 years old. It should concern both orphaned children and those who have parents or guardians in Ukraine. According to the report, Moscow has operated these since the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year. Four of the Russian camps that the Yale researchers say they have uncovered. Photo: Conflict Observatory – The main purpose of the camps we have identified seems to be political retraining, says researcher Nathaniel Raymond to the Reuters news agency. In some of the camps, children aged 14 have undergone military training, says Raymond further. He clarifies that they had found no evidence that anyone had been deployed in combat. The facilities that have been discovered in Russia mostly concern existing summer camps. 12 are on the coast of the Black Sea, seven in occupied Crimea, and ten around the cities of Moscow, Kazan and Yekaterinburg. Elleve is more than 800 kilometers from the Russian border with Ukraine. Among them are two camps in Siberia and one in the far east of the country, more than 6,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Medvezhonok (“teddy bear”) will be one of the camps where children have been kept longer than the period the parents have agreed to. Photo: Conflict Observatory Supposed to have been separated from their mother at the hospital The researchers have not been able to identify how many of the children have been reunited with their Ukrainian parents. Several parents with whom the researchers have been in contact have said that they have not received any information about their child, such as where they are going or how they are doing. Ukrainsk TV tells the story of Ukrainian Oleksander, who was sent to hospital after he was hit by a projectile under the eye. The channel says that he was taken with his mother to a filtration camp in Bezimenne, where they were separated by the Russians. The picture is supposed to show Oleksander’s mother, Snezhana, with whom they have not yet made contact, according to Ukrainian TV. Photo: UA:PBC – They said that my mother did not pass the control process and that I was going to be taken away from her. We weren’t even allowed to say goodbye, says the boy who will be Oleksander. – They looked at my eye, but did not operate. Then I told the Russians that I have a grandmother and know her number. They said: “But nobody needs you. You will have a new family.” By contacting his grandmother on Facebook, Oleksander was finally reunited with his grandmother, and not sent to Russia. Russia: Russians with big hearts The Russian embassy in Washington has responded to the report in the messaging platform Telegram. They write that Russia has taken in children who were “forced to flee with their families”. – We do our best to keep minors together with their families. In cases where parents and relatives are absent or dead, we try to transfer the orphan to suitable guardianship. The Russian Commissioner for Children meets with children from the Donbas region in October. 234 Ukrainian children were transported in three planes owned by the Ministry of Defense in Russia, according to the EBU. Photo: Maria Lvova-Belova on Telegram At the very beginning of the war, in March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin was in a televised interview with the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. She then explained that 1,090 orphaned children were among the Ukrainians they had evacuated from occupied areas in the east of the country. She said that these had already arrived at state institutions in the Donbas region, and that Russian citizens “with big hearts” were queuing up to receive them. Almost three months later, Putin signed a law that allowed children from the same areas to obtain Russian citizenship in a short time. This laid the foundation for permanent adoption to Russian families, in a country where the adoption of foreigners is not legal. The video was posted by the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights on Telegram, and published here by the EBU. The UN says allegations that children have been forcibly moved to Russia are credible The UN has previously referred to allegations that Ukrainian children have been forcibly relocated to Russia as credible. – We are concerned that the Russian authorities have introduced a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to children without caregivers, and that these children are being adopted into Russian families. This is what Ilze Brands Kheris, head of the UN Human Rights Office in New York, told the Security Council in September. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has also commented on the situation of the EBU’s investigative journalists. A memorial to children affected by the war in Ukraine, at the Russian embassy in Berlin. The statement was submitted by the Ukrainian authorities. Photo: ODD ANDERSEN / AFP – In a war situation, you cannot determine whether children have relatives or guardians. Therefore, until this is made clear, do not give them another nationality or adopt them away to another family. – It is very clear, and we have said it, but I want to say it again. This is something that is happening in Russia, and that must not happen. The EBU reports that they have managed to find many hundreds of children from the occupied territories in Ukraine who were taken to Russia to live with Russian families or in government institutions. They have also found evidence that children have disappeared during medical treatments, or while they were at summer camps within the Russian borders. This is what it is supposed to look like inside “Clinical Psychiatric Hospital number 5”, where 12 Ukrainian children are said to have stayed, according to the report. Photo: Conflict Observatory The Ukrainian authorities have created a website to help find children who have been drawn to Russia. Ukraine’s children’s commissioner, Herasymchuk, comes out strongly against the practice. – They kidnap them, they change their citizenship, they adopt them away as guardians. Unicef Norway: – At risk of abuse The report from Yale indicates that Russia is in breach of both the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. These two conventions must especially protect children against murder, torture and all forms of violence and abuse, as well as against discrimination on the basis of nationality or political opinion. Kristin Oudmayer is director of children’s rights at the UN organization Unicef Norway. Kristin Oudmayer from UNICEF says it is difficult to get an overview of the extent of children being deported to Russia. She says that states must take care of their children’s rights to citizenship, identity and family relationships, even in a war situation. – We also know that children who are deported to Russia are at risk of several forms of abuse, and do not have the protection they are entitled to, she says to news. – Unicef Norway is concerned about reports that procedures for giving Ukrainians Russian nationality are being extended to apply to separated and unaccompanied children. This may violate their right to family life and identity in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In any case, adoption should never take place during a humanitarian crisis, says Oudmayer. – Until the fate of a child’s parents or other close relatives can be verified, each separated child is counted as having living close relatives. Also those who are under the care of an institution.
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Researchers in the USA claim that Russia has taken at least 6,000 Ukrainian children to re-education camps – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
