European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged Russia to repatriate the Ukrainian children it allegedly abducted and to end “expedited adoptions”.
In a joint statement on International Children’s Day, von der Leyen and Zelensky stated that “every child has the right to be free, to be protected”.
“However, Russia’s war of aggression deprives Ukrainian children of these rights,” they added in the statement.
The representative of the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) and the Ukrainian president “strongly condemned the illegal deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children, another crime on Russia’s list of war crimes”.
Ursula von der Leyen and Volodymyr Zelensky therefore urged the Kremlin to end the deportations of children, “to end the self-proclaimed ‘accelerated adoptions’ and return them.”
“The time will come to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice […]we welcome the establishment of the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine,” they complete.
The two leaders warned that the invasion launched by the Russian Federation more than a year ago is having devastating physical and psychological consequences for millions of children – both those who fled the country to seek refuge from the conflict, and those who remain in the country and daily faced with bombardments and, in some regions, Russian occupation.
To ensure the support of Ukrainian children, the European Union has pledged EUR 10 million in aid.
To date, there are more than one million refugee children in the member states of the community bloc under the Temporary Protection Directive.
Source: DN
