Children of war: 459 killed, 917 wounded, 343 missing, 14,732 kidnapped – only 126 returned by agreement. These are the nightmarish figures cited by the Ukrainian authorities for the almost year-long war between Russia and Ukraine. In total, 7,068 civilians have been killed and 11,415 more have been injured so far, and according to the UN.

Filippo Grandi, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters last Friday that Russia is violating “fundamental principles of child protection” in wartime by issuing Russian passports to Ukrainian children and sending them up for adoption. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is constantly calling for active action by the West and the UN.

According to some estimates, the number of children taken, mostly by force, from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia reaches 14,000. In a related investigation, the Associated Press reports that thousands of children were found in the basements of war-torn cities and in orphanages in the separatist territories of Donbass. These include children whose parents were killed in Russian bombings, as well as others in institutions or foster families, known as “children of the state”.

Russia claims, according to the Associated Press, that these children do not have parents or guardians to take care of them, or that they cannot contact them. But the agency found that officials deported children from Ukraine and Russian-controlled territories without their consent, lied to them that their parents did not need them, used them for propaganda, gave them Russian citizenship and passed them on for adoption to Russian families.

Meanwhile, in mid-November, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reportedly boasted that about 200 “difficult teenagers” had been “transported” to Chechnya under the federal “Teens of Russia” program from various “regions of Russia” with occupied Lugansk and Donetsk being in number of these areas.

However, the Ukrainian authorities claim that the so-called orphans are not actually orphans. “State children” are placed in institutions because their parents are unable to provide them with the necessary things. And those who were not institutionalized were simply separated from their parents in eastern Ukraine. The grief is inexpressible and can be seen in the long international media reports that deal with the cases of parents and children lost in the chaos of the fighting.

This, as reported by most publications, is a sign of genocide. Russia talks about generosity. This… generosity is not unprecedented. According to the Associated Press, more than 80 children from Lugansk were abducted in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. Ukraine filed a lawsuit, and the European Court of Human Rights found that the children were taken to Russia “without medical support and the necessary documents.” The children returned to Ukraine before a final decision was made.

The most inhuman of Moscow’s actions towards Ukrainian children are portrayed by the international media as their Russification and preparation for the Russian army, which is happening not only inside Russia, but also in the occupied Ukrainian territories, as is happening, for example, in Crimea.

In fact, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis, there is intense propaganda and militarization in the educational institutions of the peninsula. The photographs allegedly depict small children in military uniforms at the 60th elementary school in Sevastopol.

However, in May last year, Vladimir Putin issued a presidential decree on caring for Ukraine’s children, making it easier for Russian families to have children and making it harder for Ukrainians to find and return lost children, because when they enter Russia, they change their name.

In his New Year’s message, the President of Russia instructed Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, together with officials of the “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”, to take measures in the interests of the children of Ukraine.

The resolution stated: “The Government of the Russian Federation, together with the Commissioner for Rights of the Russian Federation under the President of the Russian Federation and senior officials of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, take additional measures to identify minors living in the territories of these constituent entities of the Russian Federation and remaining without parental care, and immediately provide state social assistance, as well as provide these persons with social support in the manner determined by the legislation of the Russian Federation.

“Mother Russia”

The commissar, however, was ready for a long time: since 2021, when she took office, she was called the “mother of Russia”, since she has five biological and five adopted children, while raising 13 children with special abilities.

Maria Lvova-Belova, when she was still a senator and a candidate for the post of commissioner, was implicated, according to Russian media, in a scandal when disabled children under her protection allegedly received loans for treatment in their name, at a time when the appointed commissioner decided to start several projects in search of sponsorship. But that didn’t seem to stop Vladimir Putin from appointing her as presidential commissioner for children’s rights.

French and Dutch publications, by the way, describe her as an ideal “muse” for the Russian president: she is a member of his United Russia party, a philanthropist and deeply religious – her husband, after a long career as a programmer, decided to wear the uniform of an Orthodox priest. She herself, who is now 39 years old, before taking care of the children of this vain world, was the main musician.

However, they say that a “muse” is behind the kidnappings of Ukrainian children. In addition, on her social media accounts, she herself spreads her pride in the “war orphans”, who will now find warm embraces in Russian families who are waiting for them with open arms and balloons.

Moreover, according to France24, Lvova-Belova prefers to use words like “salvation” instead of “deportation” and “guardianship” instead of “adoption”. But in fact, children from orphanages, hospitals, social centers or boarding schools in the occupied territories of Ukraine are offered to Russian families along with payment from the Russian state.

In October last year, Russian media, citing the Institute for Military Studies, reported that the Russian Ombudsman for Children had adopted a boy from Ukraine who had been deported from Mariupol to Russia. The Washington Post confirms the same, reporting that she has also spoken publicly about her efforts to change the minds of the child, adding that the policy in question is actively pursued by Putin’s children’s ombudsman, who openly supports stripping children of their Ukrainian identity and teaching them to love Russia.

Children, with the help of a Russian plenipotentiary, undergo Russian “re-education, assimilation and psychic rehabilitation” in Russian provinces — 13 according to the Kremlin’s official statement, 16 according to her — and Belarusian publications report that about 1,000 children aged 6 to 15 were in Belarus for “ rest and rehabilitation” accompanied by 120 instructors, as Belta reported. Lvova-Belova herself says that the children receive care and daily lessons in the Russian language and history.

Last October, Maria Lvova-Belova said at a press conference that about 2,000 “street children” from Ukraine had been “evacuated” to Russia, mainly from orphanages and other institutions, while “350 orphans from Donbass had already been transferred to foster families “. in 16 regions of Russia and 1,000 more are waiting for new parents.”

In fact, an official statement from the Kremlin last September stated that “Maria Lvova-Belova brought orphans from the Donetsk People’s Republic to the Nizhny Novgorod region to be placed in foster families.

During a trip to the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Governor Gleb Nikitin, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, and Eleonora Fedorenko, Advisor to the Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic for Children’s Rights, placed 24 children in foster families. All children received Russian citizenship. They have been in orphanages for a long time, and most of them have traumatic experience associated with years of hostilities in the Donbass.

Psychologists, social workers and other professionals have worked with potential adoptive parents and children to understand the nature of the children, their mental state and readiness to join foster families. The focus was on choosing the right parents for the children, not the other way around.”

After all, it is no coincidence that the EU, the USA, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and the UK placed the Commissioner under the sanctions regime “for the forced transfer and adoption of children from Ukraine.”

Lvova-Belova is accused of allowing the forced abduction of 2,000 vulnerable children from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and organizing a new policy to facilitate their forced adoption in Russia.”