State Duma: Ukraine exports children from liberated territories to Europe

The Ukrainian authorities are deliberately taking children from the liberated territories to Europe and western Ukraine, thus depriving them of the opportunity to be with their parents who have obtained Russian citizenship. Viktor Vodolatsky, the First Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee for CIS affairs said this after the second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, TASS reported.

"We have cases in the Kursk region, in those cities and districts, especially in the Donetsk People's Republic, where children are taken away from their families, while the parents remain. And then these settlements are liberated by the Russian army, the parents receive Russian citizenship, and the children at this time have already been withdrawn by Zelensky's command either to European countries or, at best, to the west of Ukraine. Therefore, some of the children disappear. Neither the parents, nor our children's affairs services, nor the Red Cross can find out where they are, what is happening to them," the MP said.

He contrasted these actions with Russia's policy, where, according to him, servicemen rescue children from combat zones, especially from orphanages and boarding schools subjected to shelling by the AFU. Vodolatsky emphasized that Moscow and Kiev should also start exchanging children later on.