Save Ukraine employee detained in Moscow for assisting return of abducted children

An employee of the Save Ukraine fund was detained in Moscow. This organization helps to take children from territories temporarily occupied by the aggressor country to Ukraine.

The Russian state news agency "RIA Novosti" reported that on Telegram with reference to a source.

The agency writes that the detainee is a Ukrainian woman who came to Russia to take orphaned children from the occupied Ukrainian regions outside the Russian Federation's borders.

The interlocutor of the agency stated that the Save Ukraine fund is allegedly connected to the Security Service of Ukraine.

As reported by Ukrinform, on May 11th, Mykola Kuleba, the executive director of Save Ukraine and the representative of the President of Ukraine for Children's Rights from 2014–2021, declared that prior to Ukrainian counteroffensives, there had been a mass deportation of Ukrainian children from settlements near the demarcation line to both the temporarily occupied Crimea and to Russia.

In April, the Save Ukraine Foundation reported that it managed to return 31 children kidnapped by Russians from the Kherson and Kharkiv regions.

According to the state portal Children of War, at least 19,484 children were deported from Ukraine as of May 30. Only 371 were returned.

For reference:

On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Deputy President of the Russian Federation for Children's Rights. They are suspected of illegally deporting children from the occupied regions of Ukraine to Russia.

Ukraine also launched an investigation into the involvement of Belarus in the deportation of children.