Russia plans to deport 10,000 more Ukrainian children over summer – National Resistance Center

Ukraine’s National Resistance Center reported the information.

The children are taken to camps in Dagestan, Chuvashia, Krasnodar Krai and other Russian regions.

The deportation project is overseen by the ruling United Russia political party. In the camps, children are subjected to ideological indoctrination through propaganda concerts and so-called educational activities.

The Center emphasizes that children often become victims of crimes. In particular, in a children's camp in Anapa, four children from the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk region became victims of a pedophile who took advantage of their disenfranchised status in a remote land.

"This is the policy of genocide of Ukrainians, when Russians deliberately destroy an entire generation on an industrial scale at the level of a state program. This program involves not only the aggressor's top brass or a handful of local collaborators, but also teachers, doctors, artists and other camp workers," the National Resistance Center adds.

What is known about the deportation of Ukrainian children

In the context of a full-scale invasion, Russia is deporting Ukrainian children en masse from the occupied territories of Ukraine. They are taken to the occupied Crimea, Russia, or Belarus, allegedly for rehabilitation or to rest in camps.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He is suspected of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children.

On May 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that he was aware of over 19,300 children who had been deported by Russian. On May 29, Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke at an informal meeting of the UN Security Council on the issue of Russia's abduction of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. The ombudsman said that Russia deliberately changes legislation to make it impossible for Ukrainian children to return home and uses, among other things, the forced change of their citizenship to Russian.

Lubinets further emphasized that Russia fails to disclose any information regarding the Ukrainian children who have been deported, leaving their whereabouts and living conditions unknown. He also highlighted the practice of using child labor and militarizing Ukrainian children in the areas that are currently under temporary Russian occupation. 

On June 8, a US Senate committee supported a draft resolution condemning the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia and calling Russia’s actions genocide. Later, evidence emerged of Belarus' involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children. On June 27, the Belarusian opposition submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court of the involvement of self-proclaimed head of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and his entourage in war crimes.

Russia’s State Duma stated that 700,000 Ukrainian children had been deported to Russia since 2014.

On July 6, Ukraine returned two children deported by Russia. Their mother, a combat medic, was released as part of a large exchange in October 2022. A week later, Ukraine took back from Russian occupation two children who were separated from their parents on the first day of the full-scale invasion.

On July 13, the National Resistance Center reported that since the start of the month, Russians deported about 280 children from the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to the Russian republic of Kalmykia.

Subsequently, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on UN countries to join forces and force Russia to return to Ukrainian parents their children taken against their will to Russia during the war in Ukraine. The US Senate also asked the White House to impose sanctions against those involved in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and their illegal adoption.

On July 29, British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons said that Russians are abducting Ukrainian children to exterminate the next generation of Ukraine's defenders.

On July 31, Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova said that since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has "accepted" about 4.8 million Ukrainians, including over 700,000 children.

Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasized that Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova admitted that her country had deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children in 2022, which is direct evidence for the International Criminal Court.

On August 1, the US State Department called on Russia to stop deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and to return them home.

Subsequently, Mykola Kuleba, the President’s Commissioner for Children's Rights, reported that 10 more Ukrainian children had returned to Ukraine after being deported by the Russian occupying authorities.