Five children and an 18-year-old orphan were returned from the occupied territories.
The head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin informed about this.
Several families with children managed to leave for the territory controlled by Ukraine. The youngest of the kids is two years old. Prokudin notes that all of the childʼs memories were related to life in the occupation.
Now children and adults are safe. Psychologists and doctors work with them. The organization Save Ukraine helped to return the Ukrainians.
- The 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. Ukraine also has evidence that Belarus participates in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
- In January 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order granting Ukrainian children Russian citizenship. The order states that orphans and children with Ukrainian citizenship who were left without parental care can receive Russian citizenship based on Putinʼs personal decision, regardless of all or individual requirements of federal legislation. This can be used so that the deported Ukrainian children do not "legally" remain on the territory of Russia — accordingly, it will be more difficult to prove this war crime.