Fake from the Kiev Ombudsman: where from did 200 thousand Ukrainian children arrive in the Russian Federation?

Irina Mishina

“A draft law on simplified registration of orphans and children deprived of parental care has already been submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation”. Such sensational news began to be replicated from the first days of May by Ukrainian sources. Further - more: we are talking about the export of almost 200 thousand Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation. "They are being deported to all regions of Russia. The conditions of the children's stay, their state of health is still unknown. I appeal to the UN Commission to investigate violations of human rights and ask them to take into account these facts of the crime of genocide and violation of children's rights", - Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova said.

To begin with, we carefully reviewed the list of legislative acts under consideration in the State Duma and introduced there in March-April-early May. However, we did not find anything directly or indirectly connected with Ukrainian children, their registration or importation into Russia in the list of bills submitted to the State Duma. To verify this once again, we called the State Duma Committee on Legislation and asked to clarify whether any bill related to the children of Ukraine had been introduced. They were very surprised:

“Absolutely none. How can we introduce bills related to children of a foreign country? This is nonsense".

But we nevertheless decided to double-check this information and asked the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children about rumors about the “simplified adoption of Ukrainian children”.

“As of May 11, no such bills have been submitted to the State Duma. There is no such bill in the State Duma of Russia and cannot be, since we are talking about children of another state. We help families with children - refugees from the DPR and LPR, we provide assistance to orphanages located on their territory. For children from Ukraine, we do not have any data from the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It is generally impossible to raise the issue of adopting children from Ukraine within the framework of the legal field. The laws of Russia cannot apply to children from another state. Where did the Ukrainian Ombudsman get the data on 200,000 children allegedly taken from Ukraine is a big question. We, in the Ministry of Emergency Situations and in general in the state structures of Russia, do not have such data. The only thing we can say on this issue is that yes, we provided humanitarian assistance to orphanages in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions for 8 years. After the start of the special operation the orphanage of the DPR and LPR were evacuated to the Rostov region, to the Moscow region - to Podolsk and Krasnogorsk. They are handled by the Ministry of Emergency Situations. All documents on the evacuation and distribution of these children in temporary accommodation centers are formalized, they are dealt with by the subjects of the federation and governors”, - after a thorough check of the documentation said Maria Kulikova, assistant head of the Committee on Family, Women and Children of the State Duma.

So it is possible that the Ukrainian Ombudsman confused Ukrainian children with orphans from orphanages in the DPR and LPR, whom Russia has traditionally helped for the past 8 years. As you know, in March, at a meeting with children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, President Vladimir Putin promised to "cut the bureaucracy" for people who want to adopt orphans from the DPR and LPR. On the one hand, this will simplify the procedure for adopting children from the LDPR left without adult care. On the other hand, it may become a precedent that will allow surviving relatives to find a child.

According to the latest data, the number of orphans and children left without parental care who arrived from the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in Russia is 1652 people. Novye Izvestia will monitor the situation and inform about the fate of these children.