Kiev's authorities estimate that between 16,000 and nearly 19,500 children have been forcibly deported from the occupied regions of Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
Former Children's Ombudsman to the President of Ukraine and now head of the humanitarian organization Save Ukraine, Mykola Kuleba, told Reuters that children who were illegally deported from Russian-occupied territories during the war have returned to their families.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague last month issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on suspicion of abducting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and taking them to Russia. The warrant also includes Russia’s children's rights ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova.
Last month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said there was evidence of a forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and slammed the transfers as a war crime.
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Source: Reuters