We are trying to get children back home, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
United Nations, USA:
Ukraine’s first lady on Tuesday called on world leaders to help return Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia, where they say they are being indoctrinated and stripped of their national identity.
Olena Zelenska said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly that more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred or deported to Russia or the occupied territories.
Only 386 have been returned so far.
In Russia, “they were told that their parents don’t need them, that their country doesn’t need them, that no one is waiting for them,” Zelenska said.
“The kidnapped children were told that they were no longer Ukrainian children, but Russian children.”
In his address to the General Assembly earlier in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky went further, calling Russia’s actions genocidal.
“We are trying to get children back home, but time is passing. What will happen to them?” he asked.
“These children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine, and all ties with their families are severed,” Zelensky added. “This is clearly a genocide.”
Russia denies the accusations and says it saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of war.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children. Another arrest warrant was issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, on similar charges.
Since Russia invaded its neighboring country more than a year and a half ago, more than five hundred children have been killed and hundreds of others have been maimed or injured, according to Zelenska.
Ukrainian authorities are also investigating more than 230 cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers against civilians, including 13 children, the first lady said. She said the child victims included 12 girls and one boy, with the youngest victim being just four years old at the time of the crime.
“I turn to the UN Secretary General and the entire organization to help us save Ukrainian children,” Zelenska pleaded.
“Help us get information about the children taken to Russia… Help us get children out of occupied territories through special safe corridors. Our children need justice.”
Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin said that to prevent global food shortages, the international community had successfully concluded a treaty with Russia that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to continue despite the war.
He called for a similar legal mechanism to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children.
“The world was very active,” Kostin said, referring to the approval of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Russia has since withdrawn from. “I think now is the time for the United Nations to unite to bring Ukrainian children back home.”
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