The Russian occupying authorities officially acknowledge the removal of hundreds of thousands of minors from the territory of Ukraine, and among the Russian political establishment a trend has formed toward their illegal adoption.
This was stated in an interview with Army FM by the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets.
According to the Ombudsman, a total of 1.6 million Ukrainian children have ended up in territories that are currently under temporary occupation by Russia. At the same time, 744 thousand children is the number that the Russians officially recorded in their reports.
In particular, this figure was voiced by the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who previously received an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. At the same time, Ukrainian authorities and intelligence have now clearly verified 19,546 deported children — their identities, current whereabouts and the conditions in which they are held have been established.
Some of these children have already been officially adopted in the Russian Federation, with their identities completely changed. As an example, Lubinets cited the story of little Margarita, who was deported at the age of 10 months and was adopted by a State Duma deputy of the Russian Federation, Sergey Mironov. The girl’s name, surname, patronymic and even birth details were changed, registering her as Marina Mironova from the Moscow region. In Ukraine she has a biological brother and sister, but the Russian side ignores offers to conduct a DNA test for her return.
Lvova-Belova herself acted similarly, having illegally adopted a teenager, Filip, from occupied Mariupol. The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner emphasized that such cases are widespread, and the adoption of kidnapped Ukrainian children has become among Russian high-ranking officials a “certain fashionable trend”.