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Russian President Vladimir Putin and officials at Kremlin supported the forced removal of children from Ukraine, a new Yale University report alleged, including the use of the office’s aircraft and funds for the forced adoption program.
Speaking on Tuesday upon its release, Ukrainian government officials said they welcomed the report, and called on Russia to end its denial of the programs. The new findings come more than a year after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and his commissioner for children over their alleged roles in the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The authors intend to present the findings to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
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The report identified 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia for coerced adoption and foster care. Once there, many of the children were allegedly naturalized as Russian citizens and put up for adoption on state-supported databases — efforts the report’s lead author described at a press conference Tuesday as designed to “erase” their Ukrainian identity.
At the same press conference, Ukraine’s justice minister said thousands of children had been forcibly removed by Russia since the 2022 invasion. “These numbers will be increasing,” Olha Stefanishyna said, as Russia solidifies its control of occupied territories.