Russia says it has brought Ukrainian children to its soil to protect them from the war zone
28 June 2023 - 15:42
by Agency Staff
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Russian President Vladimir Putin walks downstairs before addressing members of the Russian military in Cathedral Square at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on June 27 2023. Picture: SPUTNIK/POOL via REUTERS
Moscow — The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed allegations by the UN that Russia had violated children’s rights in Ukraine and said that, on the contrary, its armed forces were rescuing children from conflict zones.
One report, released on Tuesday, accused Russia of detaining more than 800 civilians, some of them children, and of executing 77 civilians since the conflict began in February 2022.
In another report, commissioned by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres for the UN Security Council and published last week, Russia stands accused of having killed 136 children in 2022.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a regular briefing that Moscow “firmly rejects” such accusations.
“Our military, repeatedly risking their own lives, took measures to save children, to take them out from under shelling, which, by the way, was carried out by the armed forces of Ukraine against civilian infrastructure,” he said.
Russia regularly rejects accusations of human rights abuses in Ukraine and also denies deliberately targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation”.
Tuesday’s 36-page UN report, based on 70 visits to detention centres and more than 1,000 interviews, also said Ukraine had violated international law by arbitrarily detaining civilians, but on a considerably smaller scale.
In last week’s report, compiled by Virginia Gamba, Guterres’ special representative for children and armed conflict, the UN also verified that Russian armed forces and affiliated groups had maimed 518 children and carried out 480 attacks on schools and hospitals during 2022.
Russian armed forces also used 91 children as human shields, according to the report.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in March issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow's envoy for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of the war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine.
Moscow said the warrants were legally void as Russia was not a member of the ICC.
Russia has not concealed a programme under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Kremlin rejects UN report on child detentions
Russia says it has brought Ukrainian children to its soil to protect them from the war zone
Moscow — The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed allegations by the UN that Russia had violated children’s rights in Ukraine and said that, on the contrary, its armed forces were rescuing children from conflict zones.
One report, released on Tuesday, accused Russia of detaining more than 800 civilians, some of them children, and of executing 77 civilians since the conflict began in February 2022.
In another report, commissioned by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres for the UN Security Council and published last week, Russia stands accused of having killed 136 children in 2022.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a regular briefing that Moscow “firmly rejects” such accusations.
“Our military, repeatedly risking their own lives, took measures to save children, to take them out from under shelling, which, by the way, was carried out by the armed forces of Ukraine against civilian infrastructure,” he said.
Russia regularly rejects accusations of human rights abuses in Ukraine and also denies deliberately targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation”.
Tuesday’s 36-page UN report, based on 70 visits to detention centres and more than 1,000 interviews, also said Ukraine had violated international law by arbitrarily detaining civilians, but on a considerably smaller scale.
In last week’s report, compiled by Virginia Gamba, Guterres’ special representative for children and armed conflict, the UN also verified that Russian armed forces and affiliated groups had maimed 518 children and carried out 480 attacks on schools and hospitals during 2022.
Russian armed forces also used 91 children as human shields, according to the report.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in March issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow's envoy for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of the war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine.
Moscow said the warrants were legally void as Russia was not a member of the ICC.
Russia has not concealed a programme under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Reuters
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