Children From Ukraine Become War Booty As A Result Of The Russian Adoption Policy
Children fled bombed-out group homes and boarding schools when Russian forces surrounded the Ukrainian city of Mariupol last spring. After being separated from their families, they headed west, following friends or strangers in search of the relative safety of central Ukraine.
Instead, according to interviews by the kids, witnesses, and family members, pro-Russian forces intercepted them at checkpoints surrounding the city. Authorities put them on buses and sent them further into territory controlled by Russia.
Anya, 14, who left a Mariupol home for tuberculosis patients and is now with a foster family close to Moscow, stated, “I didn’t want to go. But no one questioned me”.
She claimed that she abandoned a sketchbook that contained her mother’s phone number in her haste to escape. She was only able to recall the first three digits.
The transfer of thousands of Ukrainian youngsters to Russia for adoption and citizenship has been proclaimed by Russian authorities with patriotic fanfare since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in late February. On state-run media, authorities present newcomers with teddy bears while they are shown as abandoned children being rescued from battle.
Regardless of whether the children were orphans, the mass transfer of them could constitute a war crime. According to conversations with kids and families on both sides of the border, although many of the kids did come from orphanages and group homes, officials also took kids whose guardians or relatives wanted them back.
Children like Anya who were escaping recently captured territory were swept up when Russian troops advanced into Ukraine. Local Ukrainian officials claim that several were seized after their parents were murdered or detained by Russian soldiers.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, is systematically resettling people as part of a larger effort to treat Ukraine as a part of his country and present his illegitimate invasion as a worthy cause. His government has utilized kids, particularly sick, underprivileged, and orphaned ones, in a drive to portray Russia as a humanitarian savior.
Ivan Matkovsky, 16, claimed that after escaping a government boarding school in Mariupol and getting diverted at a Russian checkpoint, he too wound up at a Donetsk hospital.
Ivan mentioned an 8-year-old boy named Nazar who had sheltered with his mother in a Mariupol theatre that had been severely damaged by airstrikes in one of the war’s most horrific massacres as one of the other kids in the hospital. He lived, but he never discovered his mother.
Similar accounts of youngsters who survived the Russian assault and wound up at adjacent hospitals were given by local authorities in Mariupol.
News Mania Desk
