The Save Ukraine team returned four more children from the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. In total, they managed to return 235 Ukrainian children.
This was reported by the “Save Ukraine” organization.
The age of the returned children is from 0 to 16 years. Now they are in one of the centers of the organization.
It also became known that Canada and Ukraine will launch a coalition to return Ukrainian children from Russia and the temporarily occupied territories. Canada will help Ukraine create legal cases for the return of children, as well as involve other countries in the coalition, in particular, work with those states that "have direct relations with Russia."
- The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russiaʼs war crimes, for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) 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.
- In January 2024, Russian President Volodymyr Putin issued an order granting Ukrainian children Russian citizenship. The order states that orphans and children left without parental care, with Ukrainian citizenship, can receive Russian citizenship by Putinʼs personal decision, regardless of all or individual requirements of federal legislation. This can be used so that deported Ukrainian children do not "legally" remain on the territory of Russia — accordingly, it will be more difficult to prove this war crime.