Four Ukrainian children abducted by Russia safely return home with Qatar's support
Photo: From open sources
Russia agreed to return four abducted children to Ukraine after negotiations with the mediation of Qatar.
According to a Qatari government official, who spoke to The Washington Post on condition of anonymity, two of the children have now returned to their relatives, and two more are expected to be reunited with their families in the coming days, Rubryka reports.
The role of Qatar in the negotiations, which lasted several months, came up at the request of the Ukrainian government.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Lolwah Al-Khater, said that in recent weeks, Qatari officials have been conducting "a continuous dialogue with our Ukrainian and Russian colleagues."
Ukrainian children aged 2 to 17 passed through the Qatari embassy in Moscow and went home by different routes. Some went from Russia to Ukraine via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Others were heading through Belarus.
The arrangements for the trip involved several modes of transport, including a diplomatic convoy, train, and private charter plane via Qatar.
Abduction of Ukrainian children
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has been abducting and deporting Ukrainian children en masse from the occupied Ukrainian territories. They are taken to occupied Crimea, Russia, or Belarus for the alleged "rehabilitation" or recreation in camps.
In the case of the deportation of Ukrainian children, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
In June, Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska reported that Russia had abducted about 19,500 children from Ukraine. Their return is difficult and long, as the Russians refuse to ease the process.
The adviser to the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Petro Andriushchenko, said that Russia kidnapped Ukrainian children through humanitarian missions, in particular, "Children in Hands," and the process was managed by the Russian commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
He added that the "Children in Hands" initiative was founded on November 15, 2022, by Lvova-Belova under the "umbrella" of the Russian Humanitarian Mission (HRM).
The reports of "Children in Hands" for the second half of July-August 2022 indicated that during the visit of Lvovova-Belova to occupied territories, 13 children were taken from the Donetsk region to be adopted by Russian families, and 133 children received Russian citizenship.
"This happened even before the pseudo-referendum. A direct confession of a crime. The report for September–December notes that 433 children were taken from the territory of occupied Ukraine to the territory of Russia," Andriushchenko said.
All reports can be found on the Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova website. The adviser to the mayor of Mariupol said that Ukraine would search for the children until they found them, and the published reports would help gather evidence against the kidnappers.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights, reported that the Russian Federation had already adopted 386 Ukrainian children who were illegally taken out of the temporarily occupied territories by the Russian occupiers.
