OUR Ukraine accused today Moscow that it organizes the illegal, mass adoption of children displaced from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.

“Russia continues to kidnap children from the territory of Ukraine and organize their illegal adoption by Russian citizens,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“More than 1,000 children from Mariupol, a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell into the hands of the Russian military, were illegally extradited to foreigners in Tyumen, Irkutsk, Kemerovo and the Altai Territory” in Siberia, the report says. The Ukrainian ministry cites information released by authorities in Krasnodar, a city in southwestern Russia relatively close to the border with Ukraine.

In addition, more than 300 children from Ukraine are in “special institutions” in the Krasnodar Territory.

These Russian actions constitute a “serious violation of the Geneva Convention” on the protection of civilians in wartime and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Kyiv said. “All children from Ukraine illegally transported to the territory of Russia must be returned to their parents or legal guardians,” the ministry stressed.

From the very beginning of the Russian invasion, Kyiv has accused Moscow of forcing Ukrainian citizens, especially children, from the occupied territories to move to Russia rather than to other parts of Ukraine, which the Ukrainian government considers tantamount to “resettlement.” Many families from Mariupol told AFP that they were forced to go to Russia against their will to escape the fighting.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}