Russia’s Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova at a press conference in Moscow April 4, 2023. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP) ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP
Russia is using the presidency of the UN Security Council, which it temporarily holds, and is trying to get the Russian children’s commissioner and, above all, sole responsible, Maria Lvova-Belova to be heard by arresting an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) alongside Vladimir Putin.
Throughout the week, the UN body has been the scene of skirmishes between Moscow and the West over war crimes allegations made by the ICC over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The British delegation had warned that they would block the broadcast of a remote intervention by the Commissioner on the UN Internet channel April 5th. “If Maria Lvova-Belova wants to explain her actions, she can do so in The Hague [siège de la CPI] ‘ London summed it up.
Several representatives of western states then left the Security Council chamber, while fifty countries estimated in a joint statement that “Russia can spread all the disinformation it wants, the truth cannot be erased”.
“Absurd Lies”
In Moscow on April 4, Maria Lvova-Belova was free to speak during a press conference at the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to combat “the maliciously disseminated absurd lies, fake news and disinformation” at the presentation of the Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.
Maria Lvova-Belova, who had turned down two interview requests from Le Monde in recent months, showed a more forgiving smile and smiled – just like when she thanked Vladimir Putin in February for giving her the chance to “mother of a child from Donbass”. to become. namely a 15-year-old boy from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol whom she had presented as adopted.
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If some of the arguments put forward were already known, Moscow’s insistence on defending “bailouts” shows that despite the contempt with which the ICC arrest warrant was officially received (“a legal nullity”), the case is being taken seriously. Until then, Ukrainian children were used more for propaganda purposes, and some of them were exhibited for this purpose, for example, during the concert organized to mark the first anniversary of the attack on Ukraine.
To put the numbers in perspective (Kiev mentions more than 16,000 “deported” children), the commissioner reminded that “since February 2022, more than five million refugees from Ukraine or the Donbass republics have arrived in Russia, including more than 730,000 children.” Of that total, she said, 380 children were “placed with families.”
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