Britain’s ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, has characterised Russia’s alleged mass abduction of children from Ukraine as a deliberate strategy to sever ties between Ukraine and the “next generation that will defend the country”.
Simmons told the Ukrainian news outlet ArmyInform that the alleged abductions were part of its “hybrid invasion” of the country.
In March, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, were indicted by the international criminal court at The Hague over the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
Children taken or kept by Russia were “subject to an extraordinary, relentless range of brainwashing”, Simmons said, which “creates a psychological barrier between the kids and their parents”.
This meant that Ukraine not only needed to find and return those children to their families, but it “inherits” the issue of addressing the “psychological journey to undo the harm of that brainwashing”.
Simmons said: “We know that there are children who come back from some of those engagements thinking that fighting Ukraine is the right thing to do.”
Russia has allegedly abducted thousands of children from Ukrainian state institutions and Russian-run “summer camps”. Children have also allegedly been abducted after being orphaned by the war or when their parents were arrested by the Russian authorities in occupied areas.
In February, a report from Yale University found that since the start of the war, children as young as four months living in occupied areas had been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in annexed Crimea and Siberia, for “pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education”.
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history.
Simmons said: “All of it adds up to a story which is utterly horrendous. It’s horrendous on every conceivable level.
“It’s pretty clear that if you steal children from the country, you are doing it to cut off at the knees the idea that there is a viable next generation that will defend the country.”
Ukraine says that as many as 16,226 children have been deported to Russia. Of those, it says that 10,513 have been located and just 300 have returned.
