"I'll eat you up, little Moskal": Russian Children's Ombudswoman on abducted teen from Mariupol she has "adopted"

Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Ombudswoman for Children’s Rights, has claimed publicly that a teenage boy from the temporarily occupied city of Mariupol whom she has "adopted" had been influenced by Ukrainian "propaganda", but in spite of that, he is already calling her "mum".

Source: Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian President’s Ombudswoman for Children’s Rights, at a joint press conference with Maria Zakharova, official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, on 4 April, as reported by the Russian news outlet Meduza and other Russian media outlets

Quote: "I can’t say everything is perfect or that we haven’t had any difficulties.

It is hard to react when your child is running after younger children, saying, ‘I’m going to eat you up, little Moskal [i.e. Muscovite, a derogatory Ukrainian term for Russians – ed.]!’ But I understand that it’s not his fault – it’s because of the eight years of propaganda in the territory of Mariupol, the anti-Russian propaganda.

But we love each other now. My son has started calling me mum."

Details: Lvova-Belova added that Filip turned 16 on 4 April. In Russia, they presented him with a cake, balloons and a mobile phone. According to Lvova-Belova, the boy had not celebrated his birthday for a few years before that.

During the press conference, Lvova-Belova said Ukrainian children have to be "worked with", i.e. re-educated.

Lvova-Belova claimed that no Ukrainian parents have been searching for their children in Russia; there have been no enquiries. She stated that most of the children had come from children’s homes and Russia is "protecting" them from the bombing allegedly being carried out by Ukraine. She claimed that she could be prosecuted if she sent the children back to their Motherland, to Ukraine.

Asked about the risk of travelling abroad after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for her arrest, Lvova-Belova responded, "Look, I have so much work here! What Western countries are you talking about? It’s laughable. I’m overloaded with work here: Russia is big, and right now special attention has to be paid to the new regions [the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine – ed.]."

Background: 

• In August 2022, Maria Lvova-Belova reported that she had become stepmother to a teenager deported from Ukraine. He had been taken to a retreat centre in Moscow Oblast in May with 30 other children from Mariupol. Lvova-Belova has five biological children and custody of 22 children in total.
• In February 2023, Lvova-Belova spoke about adopting the Ukrainian teenager at a meeting with Vladimir Putin: "Now I know what it’s like to be the mother of a child from Donbas. It is hard, but we do love each other."
• In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin and Children’s Ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova because of the deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
• Lvova-Belova claimed that she did not know exactly what she was being accused of and "has not received any enquiries about children being separated from their parents".
• On 28 March, Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, posted an appeal in Russian on her Telegram channel, calling on Russian citizens not to adopt Ukrainian children as it was "illegal and vile". Vereshchuk remarked that the stepparents and officials involved in the "adoption" of Ukrainian children would sooner or later be held accountable for it.

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