Ukrainians cannot return their children from Russian camps

In children's camps in the south of Russia there are more than 300 schoolchildren who came there in the summer from the Kharkov region. Their families promised that the children would "take a break from the war." Now parents cannot return them. The Associated Press agency talked with parents and officials on both sides.

"Our main goal was to give the children to take a break from everything that happened here-from all the horrors that were here," says Valeria Kolesnik from Izum, whose 9-year-old child is now in the Russian camp.

The eldest daughter Kolesnik visited the camp in July and returned home. But in September, the Ukrainian army conducted a successful counterattack, freeing hundreds of settlements of the Kharkov region from the Russian army, and now Russia refuses to return Ukrainian children to their families.

“We will not allow you to take the child to Ukraine,” the Ukrainian camp in Gelendzhik reports, who managed to get to Russia by hitchhiking through the Crimea and return his daughter. The woman had to sign a document with a promise to stay in Russia, after which she and her daughter went to Ukraine in the same way.

Now in Russian camps there are 52 children from raisins whose parents are afraid that they will be regarded as accomplices of the transfer of their children in Russia, and more than 250 children from other cities of the Kharkov region. The data of the Russian side coincide with these numbers. Representatives of the camp leadership in Gelendzhik and Yeysk, whom the Associated Press spoke with, confirmed that there are children from Ukraine on their territory, but refused to provide additional information.

Most families periodically talk with their children on the Internet. As far as they can judge, children are "mainly in order", they have food and clothes, they study in the Russian school curriculum.

The Ukrainian official, who talked with the Associated Press on the terms of anonymity, said that it was difficult to institute criminal proceedings in such a situation, since the parents themselves released their children and signed the relevant documents.

The International Red Cross Committee advised families to register their children as missing. According to the representative of the organization, the international recognized right to reunite families in a situation of armed conflict is as important as providing food, blood and water.

• Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of violent deportation of residents of the occupied territories, including children. The Russian authorities stated that people go to Russia voluntarily.
• The UN stated that any movement of children should be carried out only in their interests, as well as with informed voluntary consent of their parents.