Have Ukrainian children been kidnapped and then repatriated to Russia by Putin’s armed troops? Ukrainian authorities told Sky News that 97 children placed in orphanages have disappeared since the soldiers’ withdrawal in Kherson, in the south of the country. The British media have been collecting evidence of these alleged actions for several months.
CCTV footage of the orphanage in the eastern town of Stepanivka shows agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and armed military inside the building. According to witnesses at the scene interviewed by Sky News, they then captured the children in front of the establishment’s employees completely helpless.
“The children were put into military vehicles and taken away by soldiers with machine guns. They were scared and didn’t know where they were taking them,” a teacher at the orphanage told Sky News.
More than 13,000 children kidnapped by Russia
Also according to Sky News, similar abuses were committed at another orphanage in Kherson, southern Ukraine. This time they are very young children, from 3 to 5 years old.
“When the children were taken away, Russian armored vehicles were standing around the perimeter and soldiers so no one was filming,” said Natalya Kadyrova, who lives next door to the orphanage.
And to add, worried: “We don’t know where they are, what happened to them or where they took them.” According to the Ukrainian authorities, at least 48 children were abducted from this orphanage in Kherson. More than 13,000 children have been deported or kidnapped by Russia since the start of the war, the government estimates. For its part, Russia claims that these movements of children are aimed at protecting them from hostilities.
Source: BFM TV
