The real number of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia may amount to hundreds of thousands - Vereshchuk

Russia could have kidnapped and taken hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children to its territory and the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has said in an interview with the Voice of America. This was reported by the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, the ministry for the reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, Iryna Vereshchuk, in an interview with the Voice of America.

She pointed out that today we know about about 20,000 Ukrainian children who were illegally deported from the territory of Ukraine by Russia. However, Vereshchuk believes that there is every reason to believe that there are many more children abducted by Russia.

I can operate with official data. 20,000 are children about whom we know where they are, what happened to them, and we are trying to bring them back. Of these, almost 4,500 are orphans. This is very important, because when a child is a parent, either his father, mother or direct relatives can go after him. But orphans are in the care of the state, and the state is 100% responsible for their safety, - said Iryna Vereshchuk.

Vereshchuk added that the forced deportation of children from Ukraine and changing their identity had the signs of genocide and all those involved in this should be held accountable under international law.

According to the European Parliament, the number of Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia may reach 300,000. MEPs believe that the Russians started sending Ukrainian children to Russia back in 2014, when they occupied Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

on 17 March, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on suspicion of committing war crimes in connection with the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.