BBC: Leader of the “A Just Russia” party Sergei Mironov adopted a 10-month-old girl kidnapped from the Kherson region

In Russia, the 70-year-old leader of the "A Just Russia" party Sergei Mironov and his wife — 55-year-old Inna Varlamova — adopted one-year-old Marharyta Prokopenko, who was taken from an orphanage in the then-occupied Kherson.

This is stated in the BBC investigation and the "Important Histories" project.

At the end of August 2022, Inna Varlamova together with Deputy Myronov in the State Duma visited the Kherson region. At that time, 10-month-old Marharyta Prokopenko and two-year-old Ilya Vashchenko were treated for bronchitis in the regional hospital. Myronovʼs wife came to the hospital with Tetyana Zavalska, the future "head" of the orphanage.

The head of the hospitalʼs department Natalia Lyutikova told reporters that Varlamova was introduced to her as "the head of childrenʼs affairs from Moscow." After discharge, Marharyta Prokopenko and Ilya Vashchenko were immediately taken from the house and taken to Moscow under the pretext of "examination, determination of further treatment tactics and rehabilitation." Orphanage nurse Lyubov Saiko described how Russian men — wearing camouflage pants and dark glasses and carrying a briefcase — arrived to take the girl away.

"It was like something out of a movie," the woman noted.

The "Vazhnye Istorii" ["Important Stories"] publication has documents according to which in December 2022, Mironov and his wife became the parents of Marharyta Prokopenko — she was a little over a year old. Journalists specified that the childʼs name was changed to Marina Sergeevna Mironova. "Important Stories" found out that Prokopenkoʼs mother was deprived of her parental rights, her father died, but the girl has other relatives.

Seven weeks after Marharyta was taken from the orphanage, Russian deputy Igor Kastyukevich arrived at the institution and, together with other officials, began organizing the deportation of the children, including Marharytaʼs half-brother Maksym.

"They took them out of our hands and carried them away," recalled nurse Saiko. Kastyukevich himself stated that the children were being taken to the occupied Crimea, and this was all a "humanitarian mission."

• Deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russiaʼs war crimes, for which the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the childrenʼs ombudsman of the Russian Federation Maria Lvova-Belova. Currently, at least 19 546 Ukrainian children are known to have been forcibly deported to Russia, less than 400 of them have been returned. Ukraine also has evidence that Belarus participates in the deportation of Ukrainian children.