(Reuters) – Five Ukrainian children sent away or placed in care since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion returned to their homeland on Monday, officials said, part of a long-running campaign to bring home more than 20,000 deported children.
Daria Zarivna, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said those brought home on Monday included three young people who in the course of their movements had reached the age of 18.
Zarivna, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said one girl had long sought to come home despite being subjected to Russian narratives of the war.
Another boy who fled to Russia with his mother at the start of the war was reunited with his entire family.
A third sought help to find his way out of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine while another family with two children endured searches and interrogations in their home before being taken to a safe area.
“These stories are not just facts, but real tales of fate and rescue thanks to the efforts of the state, volunteers and our international partners,” Zarivna wrote.
Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, told national television at the weekend that 1,029 children had been brought home since the outbreak of war.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, in connection with the deportations.
Russia denies allegations of deportation, saying children were moved to areas outside combat zones, and dismisses the arrest warrants as meaningless.
The Gulf state of Qatar has acted as an intermediary in securing the return home of some of the children.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski in Winnipeg and Oleskandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
