Kiev's fight for its abducted children

Kiev's fight for its abducted children

When Olha Lopatkina talks about the time when she was separated from her adopted children, her voice always falters. Shortly before the Russian invasion began in February 2022, the now 42-year-old sent six of her nine children, aged between seven and seventeen, from the small eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donetsk region to a recreation camp near Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Then came the war - and the front separated mother and children. Wuhledar remained under the control of the Ukrainian army, Mariupol fell under Russian occupation after brutal fighting. Lopatkina did not see her children for almost five months.

Lopatkina now knows that after the invasion of Mariupol, Russian occupation officials, with the help of the army, took her children and other minors from the recreation camp to occupied Donetsk. There they were housed in a clinic for tuberculosis patients. "The conditions were terrible," she says in an online interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Some of the food was so bad that the children had to steal food at night. And it was a miracle that none of them contracted tuberculosis, says Lopatkina.

Months of negotiations

The negotiations between the foster mother, who had fled to the EU in the meantime, and local occupation officials to return her children from Donetsk lasted several months - as can be seen from the documents she presented. According to Lopatkina's account, the occupying forces' local "children's representative" in particular vehemently opposed the return of the children. It was only in June 2022 - when the official went on a short trip - that other officials agreed to the children's release. With the help of a Ukrainian aid organization and a local helper, the children were finally picked up in Donetsk. They were reunited with their foster mother in Berlin. The family now lives in France.

Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have repeatedly deplored the abduction of Ukrainian minors to Russian territory during the war. Some of them were orphans who were taken by the occupying forces to the territory controlled by Moscow. According to Darya Herasymchuk, the Ukrainian Commissioner for Children's Rights, some parents were persuaded by the Russians to send their children to a vacation camp in Russia. The minors are said not to have returned afterwards.

In September, at the UN General Debate in New York, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of genocide in Ukraine through the "mass abduction and abduction" of children. Last March, the International Criminal Court based in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's envoy Maria Lvova-Belova for alleged war crimes.

Russia always rejects accusations

Russia categorically rejects the accusations that the girls and boys were forcibly abducted and deliberately "de-Ukrainianized", instead repeatedly emphasizing that they were merely being protected from the violence in the war zone. And Moscow's authorities also emphasize that in the event of separation, children are always reunited with their families.

Despite these claims, Lopatkina's example remains a far too rare success story. Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, the Ukrainian government had identified almost 20,000 children who had been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as of October 2023. Almost 4,000 of them were children without parental care and orphans. The number of unreported cases is estimated by the government to be significantly higher. According to the Ukrainian government, only 386 of the abducted children have been returned so far. In the second week of November, the military administration of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine reported the return of three minors.

Search for family members

Anastasija Chaliulowa was responsible for some of these repatriations. The SOS Children's Villages employee in Ukraine has been helping families to repatriate their children from Russian institutions since the beginning of the war. To do this, she and her team researched the whereabouts of the minors, searched for family members and established communication with Russian institutions.

It costs around 500 euros to return an abducted child from Russia, says Chaliulowa. However, this sum only includes the issuing of the necessary documents for the child and their travel and food costs in one direction. The cost of the accompanying person who has to pick up and return the child usually doubles or triples this sum. Before a child can be brought back, lengthy negotiations have to be conducted with the Russian side. As in the case of Olha Lopatkina's family, much depends on the favor of the hour and the respective Russian official on the ground, says Chaliulowa.

The occupied eastern Ukrainian industrial city of Donetsk, where Lopatkina's children also lived, is said to play a key role. According to Ukrainian investigative journalist Olesya Bida, there are said to be nine hospitals in Donetsk and the surrounding area alone where Ukrainian minors were held before being "distributed" further. According to Bida, some of them were sent to orphanages or to adoptive parents in Russia, while others remained in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Lopatkina's children also reported that boys and girls had been taken from Donetsk to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

Focus on Donetsk and Luhansk

According to Bida and the War Crimes Investigation Unit of the English-language Ukrainian online newspaper Kyiv Independent, most of the abducted children come from the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia annexed in large part in violation of international law. In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Berlin, the journalist recalls that the war there began back in 2014 with the emergence of Kremlin-controlled fighters. There were also reports of children being taken behind the Russian border immediately before the start of the major war of aggression in 2022, says Bida.

Russian media showed the images at the time and justified the action by saying that the people were to be brought to safety from the Ukrainian attacks. Meanwhile, according to Kiev's child rights commissioner Herasymchuk, Russia is actively making the search for the minors more difficult. "They immediately take away the children's phones and do not allow them to report their whereabouts. It is very difficult to find the child. (...) As soon as we find out about the children's whereabouts, they are transferred to another part of Russia," she said at a conference in October.

The former Ukrainian ombudsman for children's issues, Mykola Kuleba, heads the aid organization "Save Ukraine", which, according to Ukrainian media, has now brought back more than 100 children from Russia. In the Kyiv Independent's investigative documentary "Uprooted", Kuleba made his view of the reason for the lack of cooperation from the Russians clear: "Every returned child is a witness to a war crime".

After the Occupation of Mariupol, Russian authorities used the assistance of the army to relocate Lopatkina's children and other minors from the recreation camp to occupied Donetsk. They were housed in a clinic for tuberculosis patients, enduring poor living conditions and nearly contracting the disease itself. (Consequences of war, Children, Occupation)

The Justice system has taken notice of Russia's actions, with human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, deploring the abduction of Ukrainian minors to Russian territories during the war. In addition, the International Criminal Court based in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's envoy Maria Lvova-Belova for alleged war crimes. (Justice, Children, War crimes, Accusations)

Source: www.dpa.com