Latest News
- February 19: Qatar helped return 11 children from Russia to Ukraine, some of whom have special needs or require medical assistance. As of Monday, February 19, all 11 children were in the Qatari embassy in Moscow before heading to be reunited with their relatives in Ukraine.
- February 14: The Russian Federation’s authorities persist in executing a strategy of ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians from the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine. The initial phase involves implementing systematic filtering measures to remove the patriotic population. In the second phase, Russians plan to conduct mass deportations of Ukrainians to the territory of Russia.
- February 10: The “Eastern Human Rights Group” reported that in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, Russian “courts” systematically deprive local residents of their parental rights, take away their children and deport them to the territory of Russia.
- February 9: Using open digital sources, international police forces have tracked down eight Ukrainian children who were deported by the Russians. The digital search was an initiative of the Dutch police and Europol. Law enforcement officers reported that among the children found were orphans who were forcibly relocated to the territory occupied by Russia. They are in various places and are also used for Russian propaganda purposes.
- February 9: The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has formally charged a former SBU official who stands accused of abducting and torturing Melitopol residents. Serhii Handzha, who has been residing in exile in Russia since 2014, is alleged to have been involved in orchestrating “organized mass abduction torture of Ukrainian.”
- February 8: Russia is to establish Voin militaristic centre for youth in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region, utilizing the facilities of the “Iskra” children’s health camp. The National Resistance Center states that the Ukrainian teenagers will be taught fire and engineering training, i.e. prepare for service in the Russian army. All this under the supervision of instructors-occupiers from the Russian Federation. They also plan to hold brainwashing lectures for children about the war, as well as “Russian history.”
Advocacy advances
- Vitsche Berlin organized a round table Forcible Deportation of Ukrainian Children in Rotes Rathaus. Where Are Our People? Researcher Anstasiia Saienko participated in the round table.
- Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets convened a meeting with the co-chairs of the Coalition for the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia. During the discussion, they delved into the operations of the Coalition and addressed the imperative of broadening the scope of the working group and engaging additional countries in the effort to repatriate our children to Ukraine.
- Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets discussed with the UN Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, and the head of the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Daniel Bell, the work on the return of civilian hostages and Ukrainian children who were deported to Russia.
Materials we facilitated
- Our researcher Vladyslav Havrylov talked about the deportation of Ukrainian throughout history in a podcast Spotify Doc
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4GMGsplGmAMWKmGpqcWY8z
https://kyivindependent.com/history-behind-russian-lands-recognized-by-zelensky-decree-as-historically-inhabited-by-ukrainians/?fbclid=IwAR2fPR_mCRMfSkqdplpKttbGQsxS_XhVElj48-y8lLc57IflCoNtNiyEXTQ
*Also, if you like our work, you can support us at Buy Me a Coffee.