On 9 October, nine Ukrainian children returned to the Ukrainian-controlled territory from the occupied part of the Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported.
The Save Ukraine charity organization helped evacuate five girls and four boys aged 5 to 14 from the Russian-occupied territories to the territory of Ukraine, which is under the control of the Ukrainian government.
“Children who were in the temporarily occupied territories have been returned to Ukraine. The Save Ukraine managed to achieve this with the support of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine. I thank everyone who contributed to this important and challenging work,” Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Facebook. “I believe that all children will be home soon. And we are making every effort for this,” Prokudin added.
Since the beginning of 2023, 121 Ukrainian children from the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson Oblast have been returned to the Ukrainian-controlled territory, Prokudin reported.
Russian occupation authorities have deported thousands of Ukrainian kids to the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and Russia since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The exact number of deported Ukrainian children is currently unknown.
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On 2 July 2023, a Russian official admitted that Russian authorities have brought about 700,000 Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014.
According to Ukraine’s presidential aide Daria Herasymchuk, 450,000 Ukrainian children were allegedly deported to the territory of Russia from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, alleging they are guilty of the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
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