Kyiv: Eleven more Ukrainian children have been successfully brought back from Russia and Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, where they had been taken without authorization, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, announced on Wednesday.
“Today we have one more piece of good news,” Yermak stated in a message on the Telegram app.
Among those returned were two brothers, aged 10 and 12, whose father died after reportedly being tortured for expressing pro-Ukrainian views. Additionally, a pregnant mother who had been barred from leaving occupied Ukraine due to her refusal to obtain Russian identity documents was also reunited with Ukrainian authorities. She was accompanied by her two-year-old toddler and had since given birth after reaching Ukrainian-held territory.
Yermak expressed gratitude to the office of Ukraine’s ombudsman for its role in facilitating the children’s return.
Russian authorities have yet to issue a response to the latest repatriation efforts.
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Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of forcibly taking more than 19,500 children to Russia or Russian-occupied territories without parental or guardian consent since the beginning of the war. Kyiv has labeled these actions as war crimes and argues they meet the criteria for genocide as outlined by United Nations treaties.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges linked to the abduction of Ukrainian children. Moscow, however, has rejected these accusations, insisting that the children were relocated for their safety away from active conflict zones.
