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Kiev accuses Russian children's commissioner of new crime

DPA WORLD
Published April 05,2023
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Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, April 4, 2023. (REUTERS)
At her recent press conference, Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova admitted to another "kidnapping" of a Ukrainian teenager, according to the government in Kiev.

"This story is the next public confession of war crimes - the abduction of Ukrainian children!" the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, wrote on Telegram on Tuesday evening.

He said the case involved a 17-year-old boy who was taken from Russian-occupied Mariupol in the Donetsk region to a foster family in Russia. "Yet the child has a sister in Ukraine!" stressed Lubinets. Moreover, the boy had been prevented from returning home to Ukraine on his own. After reaching Belarus, the teenager was arrested and brought back to Russia.

Since shortly after the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, Kiev has accused Moscow of "deporting" Ukrainian children. Most recently, Kiev spoke of 19,514 children affected, 4,390 of them orphans. Moscow denies this and speaks instead of evacuations.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague recently issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova as well as for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing them of "abducting" children. At her press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Lvova-Belova denied the accusations and referred to the possibility of filing a search complaint with her authorities.