GENEVA: Russia insisted at the United Nations (UN) on Tuesday that it had not deported any Ukrainian children to Russia since its invasion in February 2022, contradicting claims by NGOs and Kyiv.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asked Russia how many minors have been “evacuated” to Russia or within Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine since the war started.
Kyiv estimates that twenty-thousand Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia, according to AFP.
Russia’s deputy minister of labour and social protection Alexey Vovchenko told the UN committee that from February 2022, since then, Moscow has not been involved in the deportation of nationals of Ukraine on the territory of Russia.
Panel examines Russia’s record
The panel of eighteen independent experts is examining Moscow’s record as part of a regular review that all nations have to undergo.
Head of Moscow’s delegation at the hearing Vovchenko said that just over 3 million residents of Ukraine — a number of them were minors — these were accepted into Russia.
He said that most of the children came with their families or the guardians. They were placed with relatives or in temporary shelters.
But he said that checks were under way concerning the situation of more than five-thousand children.
Of the children moved by Moscow since the invasion, only about four hundred have so far been repatriated, says Kyiv.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin in March last year on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
The ICC has levelled similar charges against Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova.
Russia is not a member of the court and insists the warrant against Putin is “void”.
