SBU Brings Charges Against Collaborator Who Helped Russia Deport More Than 1,000 Ukrainian Children

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) documented the facts of the forced displacement of more than 1,000 Ukrainian children by the Russians from the temporarily occupied areas in the south and east of Ukraine.

“Minors were taken to Sevastopol last September and October under the guise of ‘voluntary evacuation’. Among the victims are orphans and hundreds of children whose parents were illegally detained by the occupiers while trying to leave the combat zone,” the SBU said.

To ensure the deportation of minors, the Russian invaders involved the owner of one of the Crimean travel agencies. The woman voluntarily agreed to help the occupiers forcibly transfer children from Kherson, Melitopol, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Makiivka to the territory of the temporarily occupied peninsula. For this purpose, she provided buses and ensured further accommodation of deported children at social facilities in Crimea.

Based on the collected evidence, the SBU investigators served the owner of the travel agency with notice of charges under Part 4 of Art. 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (collaborationism). She is currently hiding in the temporarily occupied territory of southern Ukraine.

Comprehensive measures are underway to establish all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The investigation is carried out by the SBU officers under the procedural guidance of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.

Natalia Tolub