Ukraine brings back 31 children from Russia

KYIV, Ukraine — The head of a Ukrainian rescue group mentioned (*31*) that the group has introduced back 31 children from Russia, the place that they had been taken all through the struggle.

Mykola Kuleba mentioned at a news convention in Kyiv that the children had been anticipated to reach within the capital later within the day. Kuleba is the chief director of the Save Ukraine group and is the presidential commissioner for children’s rights.

Deportations of Ukrainian children had been a priority since Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. The International Criminal Court increased pressure on Russia when it issued arrest warrants on March 17 for President Vladimir Putin and Russian children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine.

The International Committee of the Red Cross mentioned this week it were in touch with Lvova-Belova, the primary affirmation of high-level global intervention to reunite households with children who had been forcibly deported.

ICRC spokesman Jason Straziuso mentioned the group was once in touch with Lvova-Belova “in line with its mandate to restore contact between separated families and facilitate reunification where feasible.”

An Associated Press investigation revealed Lvova-Belova’s involvement in the abductions and located an open effort to place Ukrainian children up for adoption in Russia.

Lvova-Belova advised a casual U.N. Security Council assembly Wednesday that the children had been taken for his or her protection, no longer kidnapped — a declare broadly rejected by way of the global neighborhood.

The actual collection of Ukrainian children taken to Russia has been tricky to decide, and numbers from the warring nations vary massively.

A remark posted Wednesday on Twitter by way of Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, mentioned greater than 19,500 children were seized from their households or orphanages and forcibly deported.