Empty baby cribs in a playhouse in the courtyard of the Kherson Regional Orphanage in Kherson, southern Ukraine. Photo: Bernat Armange/AP
A A Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators have been charged with war crimes for allegedly kidnapping dozens of children, some as young as a year old.
All three are accused of smuggling 48 orphans from shelter in Russia's former occupied southern city of Kherson.
These are the first suspects charged by Ukraine following a broader investigation by the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor visited the Kherson regional orphanage.
“It was not a one-day event. 48 children who were in the Kherson regional orphanage were forcibly displaced, deported,” Yulia Usenko, head of the department for protecting the interests of children of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, told Reuters.
“We don’t know how these children, in what conditions they are kept and what is their fate.”
The Russians took children from two orphanages in Kherson. Credit: Sky News
More than 19,000 children are believed to have been smuggled into Russia from Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion 18 months ago, some never heard from again.
An international arrest warrant has now been issued for President Vladimir Putin, who has been charged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague with Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Putin managed to connect hundreds of these children with Russian families. The adoption is over and hopes of family reunification are gone.
Tetyana Pavelko, a nurse at the Kherson Regional Orphanage, plays at home with her adopted daughter Kira Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, urged parents on Friday not to personally try to return their abducted children from Russia after several Ukrainians were reportedly arrested while trying to do so.
Mr Lubinets cited the example of two women who had recently been detained at an unnamed airport in Russia as proof of the dangers involved. .
“They were sent by a public organization, and we learned about their detention from our communication channel in the Russian Federation,” he said.
In a separate case related to another organization, the grandmother who was sent to Lubinets died, after spending 13 hours in the FSB of Russia.
Vladimir Putin's meeting with Maria Lvova Belova, Commissioner for Children's Rights. Photo: MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Ms. Usenko stated that many of the children taken from the Kherson home could have been illegally adopted by Russian citizens or delivered to Russian institutions.
According to the documents of the prosecutor's office, it is alleged that orphans were taken from the home of the Kherson regional the orphanage was relocated to Moscow and Russian-occupied Crimea in September-October.
The names of the suspects have been removed from the documents, but prosecutors believe they are currently in Crimea or Russia. Unlike the ICC, trials in Ukraine can take place in absentia.
Deported to Crimea
Most of the children were deported on October 21, 2022, under the supervision of a host suspected in Russia, according to the indictment.< /p>
They were allegedly loaded into white Russian Ministry of Health vehicles and taken to Crimea.
The prosecutor's office shared a video in which they claim one of the suspects helps to load the children into a van marked «Z», a pro-Russian symbol.< /p>
If proven, this is a violation of the laws and customs of war established by the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Under Ukrainian law, this charge is punishable by up to 12 years in prison.
Ms Usenko said: “We want to bring to justice all war criminals, all people who have committed terrible international crimes against our Ukrainian children.” .
The Kremlin on Wednesday again denied accusations that Russia violated the rights of children in Ukraine, and said that, on the contrary, its armed forces are rescuing children from conflict zones.
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