Karina Bovsunovskaya18:13, 06/15/24

Lubinets emphasized that the Russian Federation is ignoring Ukraine’s requests for the return of abducted Ukrainian children.

Also, according to the Ombudsman, Russia is constantly blocking the return of Ukrainian children and does not want to give them back / photo UNIAN

Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmitry Lubinets said that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin showed complete disregard for international law. According to him, Russia is consistently blocking the return of Ukrainian children whom it deported during a full-scale war, writes The Independent .

“For Russians, the system of international humanitarian law is, excuse me, like toilet paper. They don’t see anything concrete, any powerful agreement or document. They see toilet paper,” he noted.

At the same time, in Russia they believe that they are doing everything right, and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, says that she has “saved” more than 744 thousand Ukrainian children.

However, The Independent journalists discovered that some abducted children were offered money by Russian officials to move to the Russian Federation, renounce Ukrainian citizenship and receive a Russian passport.

“It is known that at least one orphan, a 10-month-old girl, was kidnapped from southern Ukraine and adopted by senior Russian politician Sergei Mironov. This child, whose real name was Margarita Prokopenko, was changed by Mironov and his wife to his birthplace,” they said. in the publication.

In turn, the adviser to the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky on children’s rights, Daria Gerasimchuk, said that many children were displaced to “all corners of Russia,” sometimes thousands of kilometers from their homes in Ukraine.

“Russia is trying to destroy the future of Ukraine,” she emphasized.

Lubinets also said that Ukraine does not know how to stop the deportation of children without additional support from international partners or “how to hold the Russians accountable.”

“We do not have a real system of protection and human rights in the modern world. The main challenge for us is how to receive information from the Russian side,” the politician explained.

Regarding the case of little Margarita, Lubinets noted that they managed, through two intermediaries, to send an official letter from the girl’s sister confirming who she was to Russian officials, but Moscow simply ignored such a message.

“We have not heard anything in response from the Russian side. No arguments. Nothing. They did everything possible to block Margarita’s return,” he noted.

According to him, Margarita’s case was just one of thousands when the Russian Federation blocked the return.

“How can we stop the deportation of Ukrainian children? I think that we have only one real way to stop this. This is the liberation of all temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” Lubinets assured.

In addition, the official expressed skepticism about the sanctions that were imposed against the Russian Federation. He emphasized that Russia constantly violates the rights of people living in Ukraine, without fear of serious consequences.

“How can we believe in sanctions when we see the position of Iran, for example. Iran has been under sanctions for more than 30 years. So what? They produced a lot of weapons, then sold them to Russia. Now Russia is using these weapons to kill Ukraine. Sanctions? Really? We have to be realistic. We live in a situation where powerful countries can occupy territories in other countries without any punishment,” Lubinets concluded.

(C)UNIAN 2024