“Melania Trump and her representative “provided humanitarian assistance from the United States to improve the results of the initiative to reunite” children with their families in Ukraine”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“My commitment to ensuring the safe return of children to their families in this region is unwavering. I highly appreciate the leadership and persistent diplomacy of Russia and Ukraine in the matter of reuniting children and families. Their networking efforts have created a real environment for cooperation – a basis for optimism. This collaboration will continue to move the process forward in the next phase,” said the statement of the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, released by the White House.
The statement noted that Melania Trump and her representative “provided humanitarian assistance from the United States to improve the results of the reunification initiative.”
The wife of the US president expressed hope that eventually “our joint efforts will lead to broader regional stability.”
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According to official Ukrainian data, during the full-scale war in Russia and the occupied territories, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children ended up. At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, assumed that Russia had illegally removed about 150,000 children from Ukraine, while the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Darya Gerasymchuk, called the number “several hundred thousand children, i.e., about 200-300 thousand.”
In September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that thanks to the Bring Kids Back UA initiative and the support of partners, 1,625 Ukrainian children have already been returned to Ukraine.
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In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Children’s Ombudsman of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova. They are suspected of committing war crimes – forcible deportations and displacement of the population, including children, from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
In July 2023, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, stated that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has “adopted” about 4.8 million residents of Ukraine, of which more than 700,000 are children. According to her, most Ukrainian children allegedly came to Russia with their parents or other relatives.