Belarus sends children from occupied Ukraine for training with its army – AP

Belarus sent a group of Ukrainian children to train with the military and learn to evacuate in case of fire.

The children had recently arrived from Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories, AP reports.

35 children from the occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Antratsyt were sent to the Belarusian city of Mogilev.

The state-run Belarus 1 TV channel states they were taught how to behave in extreme situations.

The children were placed in a sanatorium and are being taken care of by the country's Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The Wednesday footage from Belarusian state television released showed Ukrainian children wearing a Russian flag on their sleeves.

Ukrainian children are "subjected to re-education and indoctrination" says Pavel Latushko, a former Belarusian culture minister who provided evidence to the International Criminal Court of Lukashenko's alleged involvement in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

There are cases when Ukrainian children were taken to Belarus and then to Russia, where they were given up for adoption.

According to Yale University, more than 2,400 Ukrainian children between the ages of 6 and 17 have been illegally taken to Belarus since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war.

The Belarusian National Anti-Crisis Management opposition group, which submitted the documents to the ICC, said that Lukashenko "is the main culprit in the forced transfer of these children to Belarus" and "directly gave instructions on organizing the financing of these processes."

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said some of the Ukrainian children deported to Belarus are being taken to Russia.

"(These children there – ed.) move around. Some go to Russia, some stay and stay there (in Belarus – ed.) for a long time. And it hurts us especially when 'status' children are displaced, because it is harder and harder for us to find them. Russians are trying to split them up so that they lose contact."

The deportation of Ukrainian children was the reason for the ICC in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin himself on March 17, 2023.

Russia's deportation of Ukrainian children

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russian forces have been taking Ukrainian children out of the state. Ukraine has created a map of the camps to which children are sent.

The national resistance team reports that in the occupied territories, Russian forces detain children to put pressure on their parents.

Children's Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets says the deportation of more than 19,500 Ukrainian children has been officially confirmed.

As of December 28, Ukraine has confirmed the illegal deportation of 19,546 children.

On January 4, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signs a decree allowing Ukrainian children to be granted Russian citizenship to ensure that deported Ukrainian children "do not legally remain in Russia."