Russian officials look for children abducted from Ukraine to "adopt" them – Ukraine's Commissioner for Human Rights

Russia is abducting Ukrainian children so that they can be "adopted" as part of a PR campaign. Representatives of Russian authorities at various levels are using this method.

Source: Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) Commissioner for Human Rights, at a press conference in Ivano-Frankivsk, reports the Ukrinform news agency

Details: Lubinets noted that the abduction of children from Ukrainian territories has become routine for the Russians. Moreover, Russia has used this to launch a PR campaign.

Quote from Dmytro Lubinets: "Russian authorities have started a PR campaign where stealing a Ukrainian child is now fashionable…

We began to receive information that representatives of the Russian State Duma, the government, and regional leaders began to look for Ukrainian children for so-called adoption."

Dmytro Lubinets says that the story of Russian politician Maria Lvova-Belova is the first case of an "adoption" of an abducted Ukrainian child known to the public. It is known that she took the boy from Mariupol.

It is also known that the family of Russian MP Sergey Mironov "adopted" two children from Ukraine.

Dmytro Lubinets adds that Ukraine has repeatedly tried to bring the children back to their homeland, but all attempts have been unsuccessful so far.

Quote from Dmytro Lubinets: "Here we saw a criminal offence of abduction of two Ukrainian children. Their surnames were changed. Marharyta Prokopenko became Maryna Myronova. They changed their place of birth, their birth certificate…

As for the boy Illia, whom they took with Marharyta after he was examined in Moscow and found to be ill, we assume that the Myronov family decided to abandon him because he was sick. But what happened next, where he was taken, we cannot establish."

Lubinets also stressed that the Ukrainian side is trying to bring back the Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Negotiations with partners are underway for this.

Background:

• Almost 20,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk reports that their names, surnames and dates of birth have been changed. Russia is trying to do everything to make them "accept the new reality".
• Daria Herasymchuk, Ukrainian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation, reported that Russians use six schemes to transfer young Ukrainians to Russian territory. In particular, the Russians take them away from their families, kill their parents, or "diagnose" a child with a disease that does not actually exist.

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