Russia has taken approximately 700,000 children from conflict zones in Ukraine to Russian territory, Hryhoriy Karasin, head of the international committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, said late on Sunday, Reuters reports.
“In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, escaping from bombings and shells from conflict zones in Ukraine,” Karasin wrote in his Telegram channel, news.ro writes.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow says that its program to bring children from Ukraine to Russian soil is aimed at protecting orphans and abandoned children in the conflict zone.
However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported, and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.
Most of the displacement of people and children took place in the first months of the war and before the start of the great counter-offensive of Ukraine with the aim of returning the occupied territories in the east and south at the end of August.
As of July 2022, the US estimates that Russia has “forcefully deported” 260,000 children, while the Ukrainian Ministry of Integration of the Occupied Territories states that 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.
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Source: Hot News
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