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Putin’s Aircraft Used to Illegally Deport 314 Ukrainian Children, Report Reveals

Dec 03, 2024 15:33

2 min read

Authors: Amira Barkhush
Author

As the search and rescue at a destroyed apartment building officially ends, people continue to gather at the site to remember some of the 40 victims, including children, on January 17, 2023 in Dnipro, Ukraine. (Source: Getty Images)

Russian presidential aircraft and resources were used in a program that forcibly removed children from occupied Ukrainian territories, stripped them of their Ukrainian identity, and placed them with Russian families.

This was reported by Reuters, citing Yale's School of Public Health.

The US State Department-supported research, released on November 3, documented 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the early months of the invasion. The report alleges this was part of a Kremlin-backed initiative aimed at systematically "Russifying " these children.

On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants of arrest for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the alleged war crime of deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.

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Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, was set to present the findings to the UN Security Council on December 4. He stated that the research provides evidence to support additional ICC charges against Putin for the "forcible transfer" of individuals between national and ethnic groups.

He stressed that the deportation of Ukrainian children is part of a deliberate, Kremlin-led effort to assimilate them as Russian citizens. Under international law, forcible transfer is recognized as a crime against humanity.

The university did not disclose the children’s identities but confirmed that their names and circumstances had been shared with the international court and Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets previously reported that Russia has forcibly deported nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children since the onset of its full-scale invasion. He also warned that approximately 1.5 million children residing in temporarily occupied territories are at significant risk of deportation.