The forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia is “genocide,” according to a Council of Europe resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of 46 countries on Thursday, AFP reports.

Children abducted by Russia have returned to UkrainePhoto: SERHIY CHUSAVKOV / AFP / Profimedia

“Documented evidence of such practices meets the international definition of genocide,” the Council of Europe said in a statement after voting for the text, which “requires” the repatriation of children.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the “important” decision, which will help “bring Russia and its leaders to justice.”

“The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of the elements of the thinking of Russia’s attempt to erase the identity of our people, to destroy the very essence of Ukrainians,” he said in his evening speech.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for deportation. The court in The Hague also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s affairs.

In early April, Kyiv estimated that since the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, more than 16,000 Ukrainian children had been “abducted” and taken to Russia, many of whom are believed to have been placed in foster care.

According to the resolution adopted on Thursday, there is “evidence” that they have faced a process of “Russification” through the re-education of the Russian language, culture and history.

These displacements are “clearly systematically planned and organized” as a state policy and aimed at “destroying any ties and characteristics of their Ukrainian identity,” the text says.

The Council of Europe also called on the UN and the Red Cross to have access to Russia to collect information on deported children and urged states to collect evidence of crimes, including genocide, that may have been committed.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) defines “forcible transfer of children” as one of the defining criteria.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe, the continent’s human rights body.