UK imposes sanctions against Russian officials involved in illegal deportation of children from Ukraine

This is reported on the UK government's website. 

New British sanctions against Russia have been announced by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. According to him, the 14 new items added to the sanctions regime concern Russians involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

In particular, London has imposed restrictions on Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova and Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov.

"These individuals have played an insidious role in Russia’s calculated programme of deportation, designed to erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity. Over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or temporarily Russian controlled territory by Russian authorities,' the statement says. 

In addition, two Russian propagandists responsible for disseminating information aimed at inciting violence and hatred against the Ukrainian people were subject to new sanctions. Among them is Anton Krasovsky, a former Russia Today host who called for the drowning and burning of Ukrainian children on air.

"In his chilling programme of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention – to wipe Ukraine from the map. Today’s sanctions hold those who prop up Putin’s regime to account, including those who would see Ukraine destroyed, its national identity dissolved, and its future erased," James Cleverly said. 

He added that his country and international partners have imposed the most stringent package of sanctions ever imposed on a major economy.

It is noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, more than 1,600 individuals and legal entities of the Russian Federation have been sanctioned.

Deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia

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 April 27, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized the deportation of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia as genocide and welcomed the issuance of arrest warrants for Putin and Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova by the International Criminal Court.

On the same day, Vladimir Putin signed a decree allowing for the deportation of Ukrainians for refusing to accept Russian passports.

A special report presented by the OSCE on May 4 stated that Russia's forced deportation of Ukrainian children could be recognized as a crime against humanity.

On May 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that he knew of more than 19,300 children deported by the Russians.

On May 14, the National Resistance Center reported that in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Russian invaders were forcibly issuing passports to children as young as 14 years old, threatening their parents. 

On May 24, the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office reported that Ukraine was investigating the possible role of Belarus in the forced deportation of children from the temporarily occupied territories. Criminal proceedings were opened. 

On May 29, Russia amended its martial law, legalizing the deportation of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and the holding of so-called “elections.”  

During medical examinations in the temporarily occupied territories, Russians give children fake diagnoses, and then force their parents to consent to so-called treatment or rehabilitation of their children in Russia. 

On May 29, Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke at an informal meeting of the UN Security Council on the abduction of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia. 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 also noted that Russia does not provide any data on Ukrainian deported children - it is not even known where they are and in what conditions. He also said that Russians use child labor and militarize Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories.

On May 30, Russian media reported on the detention of a Ukrainian woman in Moscow. The woman allegedly tried to obtain custody of two children from the temporarily occupied Henichesk.

On June 8, a US Senate committee supported a draft resolution condemning the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia and calling the Russians' actions genocide.

Later, evidence emerged of Belarus' involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children. On June 27, the Belarusian opposition submitted to the International Criminal Court evidence of the involvement of self-proclaimed head of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and his entourage in war crimes.

The State Duma of the Russian Federation stated that 700,000 Ukrainian children had been deported to Russia since 2014.

On July 6, Ukraine returned home 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 during the month of 2023, Russians took about 280 children from the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to the Russian republic of Kalmykia.

Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets says Ukraine has confirmation that the forced deportation of Ukrainian children and prisoners of war took place on the territory of Belarus with the participation of the Belarusian authorities.