How Moscow is taking Ukrainian children and making them Russian

Russia has prepared a registry of suitable Russian families for Ukrainian children and provides significant financial support. It depicts adoption as an act of generosity. Russian state television is broadcasting ceremonies of officials handing out passports to Ukrainian children.

How hard to say. Ukrainian officials claim that nearly 8,000 children have been deported to Russia.

Russia did not provide a total figure. In March, Maria Lvova Belova, Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights, said 1,000 children from Ukraine had been in Russia. Many have come since then, including more than 230 in early October.

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova Belova in the Kremlin, Russia – She herself picked up a Ukrainian teen.attributed to him:AP

Lvova-Belova herself took a teenager from Mariupol and was sanctioned by the US Treasury, the European Union, Canada and Australia. Her office referred the Associated Press to its response in a state-owned news agency that Russia “helps children maintain their right to live under a calm sky and be happy.”

The AP visited a tree-lined camp on the seashore near Taganrog, where hundreds of Ukrainian orphans were housed.

The mother of a professional foster carer in the Moscow region said that the local social services called her to receive Ukrainian children. She has already taken care of six Russian children, she chose three from Mariupol. After a guardianship court case in the now occupied Mariupol, she was granted custody of the children, who are now Russian citizens.

Maxime, left, Eduardo, Timofey, front center, and Varvara, right, play in a park in Loewe, western France.attributed to him:AP

The children said after their foster mother took them to a bunker in Mariupol, the Russian army drove them out. They had to choose between adoption by a Russian family and life in a Russian orphanage.

In the home with a patio and inflatable pool, the 15-year-old said she was eager to start a new life in Russia — in part because her school in Ukraine was bombed, one of her classmates died, and nearly everyone else was bombed. the left.

Russia was also accused of stealing children from Ukraine in 2014, after it annexed Crimea. Subsequently, Ukraine informed the European Court of Human Rights that more than 80 children from Luhansk were abducted at a checkpoint and taken to Russia. Separately, Russian families adopted at least 30 children from Crimea.

Mariupol, Ukraine in March. Thousands of children are found in the basements of war-torn cities such as Mariupol and in orphanages in the Russian-backed breakaway regions of Donbass.attributed to him:AP

This time around, at least 96 children have been returned to Ukraine since March after negotiations, some at the highest levels of government.

In Mariupol, the children of Lupatkina spent several days in the basement of the resort where they were vacationing. The foster son, 17-year-old Timofey, was caring for his younger siblings – three with chronic illnesses or disabilities.

They lost contact with their mother when the power went out across the city. Then a doctor from Mariupol succeeded in evacuating them – but pro-Russian forces bring them back at a checkpoint. They ended up in a hospital in the breakaway Russian-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic.

When Timofey sent a letter to his mother, she was already out of the country. He was angry.

It took a few calls from Olga Lopatkina to explain to Timofei what had happened.

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For the music and arts teacher who lost her teenage mother and home in combat in 2014, the nightmare with her kids was the hardest thing she’s ever experienced. When this war broke out, it soon became fatal to move from her home in Voldar, now on the front line, to Mariupol, 100 kilometers away. Her biological daughter, 18-year-old Rada, is stranded with her uncle near Kharkiv, another city on the front line.

When the bombing approached, Lupatkina decided to head to the border, bringing her daughter along the way. They made their way to France.

She campaigned against Russian and Ukrainian officials and reached out to activists. The Donetsk authorities finally told her that she could have her children if she came through Russia to get them. She was afraid of falling into a trap and refused.

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In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, officials told Timofei that the court would strip Lupatkina and her husband of their guardianship and that his younger siblings would end up with new families in Russia.

Then finally, hack. The DPR authorities agreed to allow a volunteer with a power of attorney from Lupatkina to collect the children.

After a three-day bus trip through Russia, the children met their father in Berlin and traveled to France. “The burden of responsibility is gone,” said Timofey. “I said, ‘Mom, take it, that’s it… I’m a kid now.'”

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Originally published at Melbourne News Vine