On Thursday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution entitled “Deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to the Russian Federation or to temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory: creating the conditions safe return, stopping these crimes and punishing those responsible.”
The resolution notes that the transfer of Ukrainian children was “clearly planned and organized as a state policy”, and that the purpose was “to destroy all ties and traits of their Ukrainian identity”.
IN statement PACE specifically points out for the press that the documentary evidence of the removal of Ukrainian children meets the international definition of genocide.
“The forcible transfer of children from one group to another with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group shall be considered a crime of genocide within the meaning of article 2(e) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, which is consistent with documented evidence of deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation or to territories temporarily under Russian occupation,” the adopted resolution reads. .
The PACE document is based on the evidence collected in the report of the PACE delegate from Portugal, Paulo Pisco. The report provides evidence that the deported children were confronted with a process of “Russification” by re-education in Russian.
Examples are also given when children were forbidden to speak Ukrainian. They were treated with Russian propaganda, forced to visit “patriotic” websites and go to military training camps.
Speaking at a PACE meeting on Thursday via video link from Kiev, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska told the personal stories of some of the children. “The court in The Hague has named the names of two suspects, but in fact there are thousands of them, because this is not a random crime. It is a whole policy and a whole conscious mechanism of Russia – to alienate our children, depriving them of their families, names, language, roots,” Zelenskaya said.
The PACE Assembly welcomed the decision of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ombudsman for Children Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes and called for their execution.
The Assembly also called for access to Russia for representatives of the UN and the International Red Cross to gather information on deported Ukrainian children.
In the post PACE on Twitter figures are given for the number of displaced children, with reference to the Ukrainian government. As of mid-April 2023, it reported that more than 19,384 Ukrainian children had been deported to Russia, and the fate of several thousand more remains unclear.
On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. They are accused of being responsible for the illegal deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
The ICC decision is indefinite, but the International Criminal Court does not render judgments in absentia. Therefore, for the trial, the accused must be physically imprisoned in The Hague. Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova risk being arrested when they visit all the countries that have ratified the Rome Statute and recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC (123 States).
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