Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 2,400 Ukrainian children have been taken to Belarus.
This is stated in a study from Yale University, Reuters reports.
It is noted that children aged 6 to 17 years were taken to 13 institutions.
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According to the 39-page report, children were taken from at least 17 cities in the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine, in what Yale University researchers described as an ongoing practice.
According to Yale University's findings, more than two thousand children were transported to the Dibrova Children's Center in the Minsk region of Belarus between September 2022 and May 2023, and 392 children were transported to 12 other institutions.
– Russia’s systematic efforts to identify, collect, transport and re-educate Ukrainian children were carried out with the assistance of Belarus. The Russian Federation and the Belarusian regime jointly coordinate and finance the movement of children from Russian-occupied Ukraine through Russian territory to Belarus, the report says.
The transportation of children to Belarus through Russian territory was coordinated by Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko.
When children were brought to Belarus, they were forced to undergo military training and re-education.
Lukashenko himself approved the use of state organizations to transport children from Ukraine to Belarus and the financing of their transportation.
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It is not known exactly how many children identified in the Yale University study now remain in Belarus.
Deportation of Ukrainian children
The Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, reported that Russia deported more than 700 thousand Ukrainian children in 2022.
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Dmitry Lubinets, responded to this statement, noting that this is direct evidence for the International Criminal Court, which indicates the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories.
