Russian Woman Admits to Abusing Illegally Adopted Ukrainian Child

A resident of Surgut in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of the Tyumen Region, Russia, has admitted to regularly beating a Ukrainian girl who lives with her.

This information was reported by Ukrainian public human rights organization ZMINA based on a video published by Russian Telegram channels.

According to the footage, the woman harbors hatred towards the child, referring to her as "khokhlushka" (a derogatory term used to describe Ukrainians) and demanding that the child be taken away, otherwise, she will continue to abuse her: "I have been beating her throughout the war and will continue to do so."

The video’s caption states that the girl is from Mariupol and that the woman adopted her:

“A woman, sitting on social media in a state of intoxication, claims to have adopted a girl from Mariupol and regularly beats her. According to the account, she clearly hates the child and incites hostility.”

The video was posted on Telegram on July 28, but as of now, neither Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, nor Lyudmila Nizamova, the regional children’s ombudsman, have commented on the abuse of the deported child. There have also been no comments from other officials or child protection services.

According to Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer from the Regional Human Rights Center, “What the Russian woman said is part of the broader issue involving high-ranking Russian officials and the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children into Russian families.”

The expert also noted that the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug had not previously been mentioned in the public rhetoric of high-ranking Russian officials as a region where Ukrainian children were transferred to Russian families. However, in April 2024, news emerged about the intention of local residents to adopt 52 children from the temporarily occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

According to the National Information Bureau (NIB), there are currently 23,711 children known to have been deported to Russia. So far, approximately 800 children have been returned to Ukraine. Contact has been established with 2,357 children. The whereabouts of the remaining 20,000 children are unknown.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on March 17, 2023, for Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova and Vladimir Putin due to the deportation of Ukrainian children.