Invaders abduct, take more than 5,500 Ukrainian children to Russia – Prosecutor General Kostin

KYIV. Sept 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – More than 5,500 children have been abducted and sent to the Russian Federation since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said.

“At the moment, we have more than 50 children … only 50, 53, 55 children returned to Ukraine. Some of them now are in a safe place in Europe. But the number which we, in the office of Prosecutor General, have is thousands and thousands of children. For which we have exact evidence that they were kidnapped and forcibly sent to Russia. We identified now more than 5,500 children were kidnapped and sent to Russia,” Kostin said in an interview on the air of Face The Nation program on CBS on Sunday.

At the same time, the prosecutor general stressed that “forcibly moving of our children … to Russia is, of course, from my point of view, is an element of potential genocide.”

In an interview with lb.ua, published on Monday, he clarified that more than 7,000 children were taken out by the invaders to the Russian Federation, Belarus and the uncontrolled territory of Ukraine, and this figure is based, among other things, on the statements of relatives and heads of children’s institutions.

"Our task is to identify these children. Currently, 5,327 children have been identified, and we are also sending this information to the International Committee of the Red Cross, because international institutions have the opportunity to help bring our children home," Kostin said.

To the question whether those taken out are only orphans and deprived of parental care, or whether they are children from full-fledged families who may have been lost during the fighting or lost their parents in the occupation, the Prosecutor General said: "Different. I can’t say right now exactly how many. It is important for us that every child is returned to Ukraine."

He also said that 55 children who were illegally deported to the territory of the aggressor state have been returned to Ukraine, and 37 more children, together with their parents or caregivers, are currently on the territory of EU countries.

According to Kostin, the Prosecutor General’s Office cannot force the Russian Federation to return forcibly deported children, but suggested that some international organizations have the ability to put pressure on the aggressor country to return the children. "We must use all the means available to us, including attracting the attention of the international community, international organizations," he said.