Using Adoptions Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War Politics HEAD TOPICS

Using Adoptions Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War

10/23/2022 12:44:00 AM

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia I didn t want to go one girl told The New York Times from a foster home near Moscow

Politics Russian Invasion Of Ukraine 2022

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New York Times World

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia . “I didn’t want to go,” one girl told The New York Times from a foster home near Moscow. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia . “I didn’t want to go,” one girl told The New York Times from a foster home near Moscow. Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, has organized the transfers and said that she herself adopted a teenager from Mariupol. Ms. Lvova-Belova, who is under Western sanctions, said the boy had been homesick at first and even attended a demonstration supporting Ukraine. The exact number of resettled children is not clear. Russian authorities did not respond to questions from The Times. Ukrainian authorities said they did not have an accurate count, but placed the figure in the thousands.Credit...In the Siberian city of Salekhard along the Arctic Circle, Olga Druzhinina said she adopted four children, aged 6 to 17, from around the Ukrainian city of Donetsk more than 1,600 miles away. Russia Read more:
New York Times World » WATCH: CNN reporter goes inside a secret Ukrainian drone workshop CNN Ukraine war's most devastating drones, ranked Ukraine urges citizens to save electricity after attacks on infrastructure Ukraine timelapse map shows how Russia is abandoning territory in Kherson

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President Joe Biden said Friday that while he has not made a formal decision about running for reelection in 2024, it is his 'intention' to do so. Read more >> WATCH: CNN reporter goes inside a secret Ukrainian drone workshop CNNCNN’s fpleitgenCNN gets access to a secret Ukrainian military drone workshop where the country’s “tech warriors” are working to level the playing field against Russia . Watch here: wolfblitzer fpleitgenCNN How much suffering does Europe have to endure and how much money does America have to spend to finance a proxy war to prop up a failed state Ukraine war's most devastating drones, rankedOver the past several weeks, Ukraine has accused Russia of using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in the ongoing war. Ukraine urges citizens to save electricity after attacks on infrastructure“Today, even one saved kilowatt is a help to our energy system,” the governor of Kyiv, Oleksiy Kuleba, tweeted as Ukraine braced for severe power shortages following an extensive bombing campaign by Russia of civilian infrastructure. 😢😢😢 Does Putin really think he'll be recognized as a successful victor in a war simply b/c he destroyed civilian infrastructure & targeted & killed innocent civilians? His forces & military machinery are getting obliterated by Ukraine using Western technology. Putin's a loser! How can NATO/US let the murder of civilians go on and not take some action in this the 21st century? How about an ultimatum to Putin: “Stop murdering civilians by Nov 1st or we take action” Action could be as little as Air Support. Ukraine timelapse map shows how Russia is abandoning territory in Kherson Russia has ordered the evacuation of civilians in the Kherson region as it prepares to fight approaching Ukrainian soldiers. demo graphics 'evacuation of civilians' you call it. Interesting, that suggests that they are evacuated by their own will, which I doubt is the case. More like russia is forcing ukrainians to go to russia whether the like it or not. Likely under threats. Also your map is not correct. CRIMEA IS UKRAINE! Donetsk is Ukraine, Luhansk is Ukraine. More grain ships depart from Ukraine under Istanbul dealThis July, Türkiye, the UN, Russia , and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul to resume grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports. reports about a removal-and-adoption policy that targets the most vulnerable children in the most dangerous situations.1.operational update on October 12, the U.tweeted . Transferring people out of an occupied territory can be a war crime, and experts say the practice is especially thorny when it involves children, who may not be able to consent. Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of perpetrating a genocide. Did you encounter any technical issues? Video player was slow to load content Video content never loaded Ad froze or did not finish loading Video content did not start after ad Audio on ad was too loud Other issues Ad prevented/slowed the page from loading Content moved around while ad loaded Ad was repetitive to ads I've seen previously Other issues. The forced transfer of children, when intended to destroy a national group, is an act of genocide under international law." The operational update also said that these drones have a range of about 2,500 KM and"only has a small explosive payload. Russian officials have made clear that their goal is to replace any childhood attachment to home with a love for Russia. Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, has organized the transfers and said that she herself adopted a teenager from Mariupol. The scale of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, visualized Russian bombs have destroyed roughly one-third of Ukraine’s 104 autotransformers, crucial components of the country’s Soviet-era power system, which make it possible for electricity produced by the country’s nuclear, gas and coal-fired plants, to be transmitted across a vast network of trunk lines, Ukrainian officials said — raising fears of a winter without, power, heat or hot water. Ms. Lawlor also noted that the payload size carried by a Shahed-136 drone is around 80 to 90 pounds and its explosive power is equivalent to"about three artillery shots. Lvova-Belova, who is under Western sanctions, said the boy had been homesick at first and even attended a demonstration supporting Ukraine. “He was yearning for the house in which he grew up, friends and his dear Mariupol,” she wrote on Telegram . But the children soon come to appreciate their new home, she said. A police expert holds a fragment of a drone with a handwritten inscription reading"For Belgorod. The exact number of resettled children is not clear. “Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Russian authorities did not respond to questions from The Times. Ukrainian authorities said they did not have an accurate count, but placed the figure in the thousands.S. In April, Russian authorities announced that more than 2,000 children had arrived in Russia. Most came from group homes and orphanages in territory long occupied by Russia. Russian officials said that 100 had come from recently occupied areas. The Switchblade 300 drone can also be carried in a backpack as it only weighs around 5. Russia has also used Iranian-made kamikaze drones, with their ominous moped-like buzz, to hit infrastructure targets. In the following months, they announced hundreds of new arrivals. Image Olga Druzhinina said she had adopted four children, aged 6 to 17, from the Ukrainian city of Donetsk more than 1,600 miles from her home in Siberia. Credit. Read more...” Perhaps more vital is the question of what impact a weakened energy system will have on the country’s economy and public morale, with winter fast approaching. Courtesy of Olga Druzhinina While the resettlement of children from newly occupied lands has so far been sporadic, the Russian government recently announced plans to resettle these children more efficiently, raising the prospect of many more transfers. Russia’s wartime tactic exploits some of the thorniest and most intimate family dynamics. Russian families spoke of adoption as a matter of patriotism, but also expressed a heartfelt desire to provide a better life for the children. And while many Ukrainian parents try to recover their children, others do not, whether for financial reasons or because their relationships were severed even before the war. In the Siberian city of Salekhard along the Arctic Circle, Olga Druzhinina said she adopted four children, aged 6 to 17, from around the Ukrainian city of Donetsk more than 1,600 miles away. Because of the damage, Galushchenko said a 20 percent reduction in consumption among Ukrainians would “critically help” to reduce the strain on the electrical system. Russia recently illegally annexed the Donetsk region and three others in eastern and southern Ukraine. “Our family is like a small Russia,” Ms. Druzhinina said in an interview. “Russia took in four territories, and the Druzhinin family took in four children.” She said she was awaiting a fifth child and considered the children fully Russian. “Russia is trying to destroy the energy system of Ukraine, to make our people suffer even more,” he said. “We are not taking what is not ours,” she said. ‘They Simply Took Away All the Children’ A‌nya was living and recovering from tuberculosis in a group home on a wooded campus with a red swing set. As explosions blew out the building’s windows and doors, the children fled to the basement. Anya read fairy tales to the youngest ones and passed the time by drawing. Children in government homes are often labeled orphans, but most do have families. National energy consumption has plummeted since the start of the war, with millions of residents fleeing the country, and businesses shuttered. Ukraine makes it easy for parents struggling with illness, substance abuse or financial hardships to place their children — temporarily or permanently — in state-run institutions. The United Nations estimated that about 90,000 children were in such homes across Ukraine before the war. Many parents rescued their children from Anya’s building. Others did not, whether because they could not make their way through the war zone or, like Anya’s mother, they were unreachable. A Ukrainian volunteer crammed Anya and the 20 or so remaining children into an ambulance bound for the city of Zaporizhzhia, other children recalled. So far, they estimated the damage to be around $2 billion. But they were rerouted at a Russian checkpoint, they said, and ended up with dozens of children at a hospital in the city of Donetsk, the capital of a region that Russia has occupied since 2014. This region is the heart of Russia’s removal-and-adoption policy. Since the invasion began, Mr. Putin’s government has promoted the systematic transfer of children from the area’s orphanages and group homes. For Anya and others taken from newly occupied territories in Ukraine, Donetsk also served as a sort of way station en route to Moscow. Ivan Matkovsky, 16, said he, too, ended up in a Donetsk hospital after fleeing a government boarding school in Mariupol and being rerouted at a Russian checkpoint. Image Credit... Courtesy of Ivan Matkovsky Among the other children in the hospital, Ivan said, was an 8-year-old boy named Nazar, who had hidden with his mother in a Mariupol theater that was pummeled by airstrikes in one of the war’s defining atrocities . He survived but never found his mother. Local authorities around Mariupol told similar stories of children who survived the Russian assault and ended up at nearby hospitals. One toddler arrived in a stroller along with a handwritten note that read, “This is Misha. Please help him!” said Vasyl Mitko, an official in the town of Nikolske who helped at the hospital. But one by one, Mr. Mitko said, the children vanished. “They simply took away all the children who were left without parents,” he said. “We still do not know where these children are.” ‘We Will Show You Moscow’ Ukrainian parents who managed to locate their children in Donetsk, gather the right paperwork and contact the right people had a chance at reunification. But even then, children and parents say, the authorities pressured children to go to Russia voluntarily. “They were promised a new, wonderful life,” said Natalia, a foster mother from Mariupol. Her 15-year-old foster son agreed to go to Russia, she said. She asked not to be identified by her full name because she worried it would make it harder to get him back. “These are children of a difficult fate,” she said. “They are easily deceived. ” Timofey Chmel, 17, who was in the Donetsk hospital with Anya, said the authorities promised lives of leisure and love in Moscow. “We were told: ‘If you need gadgets or clothes, just tell us. We will buy everything. If you want, you can just go and relax. We will show you Moscow,’” he said. “‘If your parents abandoned you, they do not need you. We will help you.’” Image Timofey Chmel, left, watching TikTok videos from Ukraine this summer in Loué, in western France. Credit.. . Jeremias Gonzalez/Associated Press Timofey refused and was later reunited with his foster mother. Ivan, the 16-year-old boarding school student, said he and one of his schoolmates managed to contact their school’s headmaster, their legal guardian, and arrange their return. When children had nobody to call, or when parents were unable or unwilling to brave the journey to Donetsk, the children were given no choice. While Ivan was waiting for the headmaster to pick him up, he said, the other children were put on a bus for Russia. They protested. “No one listened to them,” Ivan said. “They had no choice.” Ivan is still in contact with three of the children in Russia. He does not know what became of Nazar, the boy who survived the theater attack. Anya, too, had no choice. She said a doctor told her that she would rest in an institution in the Moscow region for three weeks. That was months ago. “I was just told,” she said. “And that was it. ” ‘Our Little Fellow Citizens’ The Russian government carefully choreographs the pipeline from the Donetsk region to Moscow. “Now you are at home, in a circle of friends,” the Russia-imposed mayor of Donetsk told a group of boys from Mariupol. He shared a video of the moment on Telegram. Russian officials in Donetsk invite reporters into group homes to witness children receiving cellphones, gifts and clothes. State-run television airs the children’s arrival in Moscow by train. Mr. Putin instituted a streamlined process in May allowing the swift nationalization of Ukrainian children. The first group became Russian citizens in July, officials announced . “I did not recognize those kids with whom we traveled in April on the train to their new life,” Ksenia Mishonova, the children’s rights commissioner for the Moscow region, said in a statement. “Now they are our little fellow citizens!” Some children were indeed orphaned or abandoned in Ukraine and prefer their lives in Russia. The Times spoke to one teenager from Mariupol who said he had no family back home. He said his foster family loved him like he was their own. Others, like Anya, long to return. She participated in a weekly class called Conversations About Important Things. The half-hour lesson, introduced recently by Mr. Putin, teaches children to be proud of Russia. Sometimes, Anya said, she cries, wondering if something horrible has happened to her family. After more than a month of reporting, Times reporters reached Anya’s mother, Oksana, in Ukraine. With no job, no internet access, a small disability pension and a war going on, she said she had no idea how to find her daughter. “I’m looking everywhere, but I can’t find her,” she said. “She is looking for me.” She said she did not know that Anya had been taken to Russia. Reporters told Anya and Oksana how to contact each other. The prospect of Anya returning home, though, is unclear. Ukrainian officials have been tight-lipped about how they have gotten dozens of children back from Russia. “Is this really her number?” Anya asked. Anastasia Kuznietsova .