Ukraine files first charges against Russia  for deporting Kherson orphans

Reuters reported the information.

Ukrainian prosecutors have charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes for deporting orphans from Kherson. This is the first case brought by Ukraine, which claims that over 19,000 children have been illegally transferred to Russia or Russian-held territory.

This follows an investigation carried out with the cooperation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the chief prosecutor of which visited the Kherson Children's Home. The charges mark the pre-trial stage, indicating sufficient evidence of criminal offenses.

The ICC had previously issued arrest warrants against Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, accusing them of illegally deporting children from orphanages in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

According to prosecution documents viewed by Reuters, 48 orphans were removed from the Kherson Regional Children's Home and transferred to Moscow and Russian-occupied Crimea. 

“If proven, this is a violation of the laws and customs of war under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and punishable by up 12 years in prison under Ukrainian law, the document seen by Reuters said,” the outlet reports.

The whereabouts of the affected orphans, aged between one and four years old, are currently unknown, according to prosecutors.

"It was not a one-day event. 48 children who were in the Kherson Region Children's Home were forcibly displaced, deported. We don't know how these children are, in what conditions they are kept, or what their fate is," Yuliia Usenko, head of the department for the protection of children's interests in Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office, told Reuters.

What is known about the deportation of Ukrainian children

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.

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 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. 

President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recently acquainted himself with the Bring Kids Back UA plan, aimed at facilitating the repatriation of children who were illegally deported by Russia. He also participated in the opening of the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights.