Intl community should strengthen sanctions in response to forcible deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia – Vereschuk

KHARKIV. Sept 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine considers unacceptable any attempts to adopt in the Russian Federation children forcibly taken from Ukraine to the territory of the aggressor state, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereschuk has said.

"We have information that Russia is preparing some of them to be transferred to certain guardian families, as they call it, some other forms of adoption. This is absolutely unacceptable. We, as a state, did not allow our children to be adopted and in some form provide for the living on the territory of the aggressor state," Vereschuk said at a briefing in Kharkiv on Monday.

She stressed that at the moment she does not have reliable data on how many children were forcibly taken from Ukraine to the Russian Federation, noting that as of September 1, such actions were known in relation to 2,161 children deprived of parental care.

Vereshcuk regarded this as a crime committed by the aggressor state. In her opinion, the international community should respond to the actions of the Russian Federation by strengthening sanctions.

"Now our task is to find these children, their location and demand their return. We demand the return of our children, we appeal to the international community with a demand to do everything so that Russia pays for the fact that our children are illegally present on the territory of the Russian Federation, i.e. to strengthen sanctions," Vereschuk said.