Ukraine Accuses Russia of Taking Thousands of Children from the Country

Ukraine accused Russia of “forcibly transferring” 2,389 children from the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk to Russia on Tuesday.

Iryna Venediktova, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, stated that Ukraine is investigating reports of Russia taking children from the regions.

In a tweet, the US Embassy in Kyiv wrote that the act amounted to “kidnapping.”

According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Russian forces have illegally removed 2,389 Ukrainian children from Donetsk and Luhanks oblasts to Russia. This is not assistance. It is kidnapping.

— U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) March 22, 2022

Russia argues that it is taking in refugees

Similarly, officials from the city of Mariupol in Ukraine, which has come under heavy shelling from Russian troops, claim that Russia has deported thousands of people, including women and children, against their will.

“Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported on to the Russian territory,” the city council of Mariupol wrote on social media.

“The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing,” the statement said.

“It is known that the capture Mariupol residents were taken to filtration camps, where the occupies checked people’s phones and documents…After the inspection, some Mariupol residents were redirected to remote cities in Russia, the fate of others remains unknown,” a statement from the Mariupol city council reads.

For its part, Russia denies forcibly removing anyone from Ukraine, but asserts that it is accepting refugees from the country.

Mariupol, Ukraine target of Russian bombings

The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been a major target of the Russian military for the past week. Since the early days of the Russian invasion of the country, troops have surrounded the city, laying siege to it.

Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardments since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped as fighting rages on the streets around them.

Residents have gone without basic necessities such as food, water, and electricity as Russian airstrikes wipe out civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, art schools, theatres, and blocks of apartments. Russia denies targeting civilians.

“Once again it is clear that the occupiers are not interested in the city of Mariupol. They want to level it to the ground and make it the ashes of a dead land,” the city council stated.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lamented at the attacks on the city, stating in a video message: “To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come.”

Greek diplomat Manolis Androulakis, who was the last remaining Western diplomat left in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine, arrived in Greece from Bucharest on Sunday evening.

Androulakis gave a harrowing account of his experience in the city.

“Mariupol will be added to the lists of international cities that have been destroyed, such as Guernica, Stalingrad, and Grozny,” he stated.