31 children return to Ukraine from Russian-controlled territories

The charitable organization Save Ukraine reports that 31 children have returned from Russian-controlled territories to Ukraine.

“Children kidnapped by the Russians from Kherson and Kharkiv regions have finally crossed the border with their relatives and now they safe. After a long separation of several months, they will meet their families,” wrote Mykola Kuleba, head of the organization.

Kuleba says the latest operation was his organization’s fifth rescue mission. A previous operation returned 18 children to Ukraine. He noted, however, that with each new mission, Ukrainian families trying to get their children back have to undergo increasingly lengthy interrogations by the FSB.

Kuleba has said that, once the return of Ukrainian children became widespread, “[The Russians] realized that every child returning home is irrefutable evidence of their crimes.”

During a press conference on the current mission, Kuleba said that the initial plan was to bring home 33 children. “Unfortunately, a grandmother, who was supposed to collect two of the children, died during the course of the mission,” he said, adding that they now have to return the grandmother’s body to Ukraine, as well as the children she was supposed to pick up.

Ukraine’s Children of War portal has recorded nearly 19,500 cases of forced deportation of minors. Only 360 children have been returned to Ukraine. On March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, for the illegal deportation of children to Russia.