Russian commissioner for children’s rights rejects ICC’s war crime allegations
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The ICC last month issued an arrest warrant against Ms Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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UNITED NATIONS - Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights on Tuesday dismissed International Criminal Court (ICC) allegations that she was responsible for unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine.
The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin
The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and children’s care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. Some of those children, the ICC said, had been given up for adoption in Russia.
Ms Lvova-Belova told a news conference in Moscow that the consent of children’s parents has always been sought, that the commission has acted in the best interests of any child, and that it is more accurate to talk of guardianship rather than adoption.
If there are specific problems with specific families, she said she is ready to help solve them.
“It is unclear to the presidential commissioner for children’s rights what the International Criminal Court’s allegations specifically consist of and what they are based on,” her commission said in a statement about its work released before her news conference.
“The use of the formulation ‘unlawful deportation of population (children)’ in the ICC’s official statement causes bewilderment,” it said, adding that it has not received any documents from the ICC, whose jurisdiction Russia does not recognise.
Donetsk and Luhansk, two Ukrainian regions claimed and partially controlled by Russia, have asked Russia to accept civilians, including orphans and children whose parents were missing, the commission said.
Ms Lvova-Belova said that Russia has accepted more than five million refugees from Ukraine’s Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022, when Mr Putin ordered troops into Ukraine.
The most deadly war in Europe since World War II has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of men on both sides, while millions of adults and children have been displaced by what has turned into a grinding artillery war.
Since the invasion, Ukraine has cast Russia as a brutal imperial aggressor that has committed war crimes, including the theft of children. Russia says the West has ignored Ukraine’s own crimes.
Ms Lvova-Belova said she rejected the ICC’s allegations, accusations from Ukraine, and what her commission called disinformation from foreign journalists about alleged “deportations of children” which she said was false.
She dismissed claims that children had been taken to camps for alleged re-education, and her commission, she said, did not know of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from his or her blood relatives to be given up to a foster home.
Moscow has not concealed a programme under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told reporters in March that the informal meeting of UN Security Council members to be held on Wednesday had been planned long before the ICC announcement, and it was not intended to be a rebuttal of the charges against Mr Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova.
While a feature of Russia’s presidency, members do not need to be the rotating monthly president to hold such meetings.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to travel to New York to chair formal UN Security Council meetings later in April on the Middle East and on “effective multilateralism through the defence of the principles of the UN Charter”.
The 193-member UN General Assembly has criticised Russia for violating the founding UN Charter by invading its neighbour and called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in line with the principles of the UN Charter.
Given Russia’s Security Council presidency started on April 1, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Monday: “It’s like an April Fool’s joke... We expect that they will behave professionally.
“But we also expect that they will use their seat to spread disinformation and to promote their own agenda as it relates to Ukraine, and we will stand ready to call them out at every single moment that they attempt to do that,” she said. REUTERS
