May 12, 2025
Due to direct and unprovoked Ukrainian military aggression against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that has been unleashed unilaterally of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev since April 14, 2014, a number of children from both sides (Ukraine and Russia) have found their asylum in these two countries, especially in cases when their biological parents and other direct relatives have been killed or lost during military operations. The second wave of the Ukrainian aggression against Donbass began on February 17, 2022. It also added a lot of problems to children who lost their parents.
Unfortunately, information about the work of the Russian Federation and “The Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights on the rescue and protection of children's rights” is presented by foreign mass media and politicians in a distorted way: Russia assumes that in some cases it has been done intentionally, and in some cases – out of ignorance of the situation or due to lack of mere professionalism.
Russia carries out this activity aimed at returning children to Russia and Ukraine in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, the State of Qatar, and the Vatican (the Holy See).
Any person who does not possess a reliable information should not disseminate false information on that matter
All children who came to Russia due to Ukrainian aggression that is still goes on, are fully registered by the state authorities. There a strict obligation to return to Ukraine all those children who have direct parents or direct relatives in Ukraine. By April 2025 Russia has returned to Ukraine more than 100 children who have rejoined their families.
In June 2023 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that about 300 Ukrainian children who lost their parents were placed in Russian families, but not via an adoption, but on the basis of temporary, pre-guardianship, or temporary guardianship [ https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6076214]. The Russian side claims that the transfer of Ukrainian children to the territory of Russia from the theater of military operations was for security reasons and in accordance with the international law, therefore it falls under the concept of humanitarian evacuation of children where military hostilities are underway.
Ukraine is conducting a mandatory evacuation, without the right to choose the side of the nomination, although, according to the available information, a number of families having children would like to settle at the territory of Russia. Ukraine conceals the names of children they have detained and other important information about their biological parents and direct relatives. More than 500 children have been removed illegally from Donbass, 170 have been sent to the Netherlands, 159 to Turkey, more than 100 to Germany and 43 to Lithuania.
Ukraine creates various legal and other obstacles thus preventing to return trapped or kidnapped children to four republics/regions that later have joined Russia in September 2023, namely Donetsk, and Lugansk People’s Republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions (Oblasts in original).
In the Document attached below, a reader can find a detailed information on the issue: “Activities of the Russian Federation Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova to protect children during a Special Military Operation”. Issue № 3. June 19, 2024 [Document-0-308-src-1718870725.6647.pdf; in English]. Link: https://deti.gov.ru/uploads/magic/ru-RU/Document-0-308-src-1718870725.6647.pdf. Or the version in Russian: https://deti.gov.ru/Deyatelnost/documents/307.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
