Ombudsman: Ukrainian Children Illegally Held in Russia’s 57 Regions

Ukraine’s authorities have recorded the residence of children, abducted by the occupiers, in 57 regions of the Russian Federation.

Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets reported this during the presentation of the special report.

“We officially recorded the residence of Ukrainian children in 57 regions of the Russian Federation. In 16 regions, at least 380 children became victims of forcible transfer to Russian families. Cases of abduction of children by the Russian military in the temporarily occupied territories for intimidation, pressure on relatives, and intelligence data collection were also recorded,” the Ombudsman said.

He cited data from law enforcement agencies that the Russian Federation involves minors in the armed conflict in the role of spies and fire spotters, and also involves them in campaigns of forced mobilisation of Ukrainian citizens in temporarily occupied territories, sometimes even as actors for propaganda videos.

According to Lubinets, many tools are used to recruit children. For example, the so-called rest in “military-patriotic camps,” membership in the “Young Army,” and other “military-patriotic” movements.

“Actually, there are a lot of them. They differ in name, are launched in the territory of different federal subjects of the Russian Federation, but all have the same characteristics. That is, their goal is the maximum involvement of Ukrainian children in the so-called patriotic movements and the popularisation of the military of the Russian army,” Lubinets said.

The Commissioner reported that, according to the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations, five criminal proceedings have been registered to investigate the use of minors in the armed conflict since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Bohdan Marusyak