According to a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), hundreds of thousands of children were likely taken by Russia to areas under its control in Ukraine, as well as to its own territory.
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“There seems to be a plan to massively assimilate them,” Veronika Bilkova, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Prague who authored the study along with two other experts, told reporters on Thursday.
It is difficult to determine exactly how many children have been deported, a policy that began as early as 2015 after the annexation of Crimea, she stressed.
“According to the lowest estimates we could find, their number is around 20,000. However, Russian and Ukrainian sources put the numbers 10 times higher or even higher,” Ms. Bilkova explained. “So it’s really a massive phenomenon.”
The 82-page report documents “multiple violations of children’s rights,” using a “systematic pattern” aimed at integrating them into Russian families rather than helping them reunite with loved ones. Such a practice “may constitute a crime against humanity,” he concludes.
Under international law, no party to a conflict may evacuate children to a foreign country, except temporarily for compelling health or safety reasons.
For its part, Russia claims to protect “refugee” children, but according to the document’s authors, it has “taken legal and political measures (…) to encourage the acquisition of Russian citizenship and their placement in “welcome” families.” .
The transferred young Ukrainians would continue to be “subjected to a pro-Russian information campaign with the aim of their re-education and subjected to military training”.
The report is based on written sources, around twenty interviews and a visit to Kiev in April. Russia refused to cooperate.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March for the war crime of “illegally deporting” children.
According to official figures, which put the number of victims at more than 19,000, only 360 children have been recovered by Ukrainian authorities so far.
The OSCE, which has 57 member states, was founded in 1975 in the midst of the Cold War to promote East-West relations, but its functioning has been hampered in recent months as Moscow blocked several key decisions.