Vladimir Putin’s authorities are planning to deport at least 52,000 Ukrainian children to Russia in the coming months as a disturbing abduction plot intensifies.
Leonid Pasechnik, the Kremlin-appointed head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, announced on Monday that Russia will “host” over 12,000 children from the eastern Ukrainian region it is illegally occupying.
In addition to this, a programme titled “Useful Vacations” will sponsor 40,000 Ukrainian children to “visit” Russia to attend summer camps. Some children will be taken as far as Vladivostok – located 6,000 miles east of Ukraine and just north of North Korea.
Researchers at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say the proposed “camps” are “a fundamental component of Russia‘s campaign to deport Ukrainians, including children, to Russia.”
Forcibly transferring children “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” is classed as genocide under Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Abducted children are re-educated through a process of “Russification” which sees them banned from speaking Ukrainian and forced to learn Russian.
They are taught about Russian culture and history, while being exposed to propaganda. Some are taken to “patriotic” sites or forced to undergo military training.
The ISW report added: “Russian authorities will likely escalate deportation efforts throughout the summer under the guise of summer vacations, but these programs represent genocidal acts against the Ukrainian people despite Russian efforts to cloak them as temporary and positive educational opportunities.”
It is understood that children from occupied Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine will be taken to the Vladivostok camp in the Russian Far East.
In January, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child urged Russia to end the forcible transfer of children and return them to their families in Ukraine.
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It followed Kyiv accusing Moscow of abducting 20,000 children since the outbreak of war in February 2022.
Russian officials argued that “placements for evacuated children are arranged, first and foremost, at their request and with their consent.”
Analysts at Yale University said in November that 2,400 Ukrainian children aged between six and 17 had been moved to Belarus, Russia‘s closest ally located north of Ukraine.
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