EU Parliament: deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, Putin “a war criminal”. Committed to letting them go back to their own families

(Strasbourg) Vladimir Putin committed a crime against humanity by ordering to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. This is the charge that came to the fore in the last few weeks and that was repeated several times at a debate held at the European Parliament today. The deputy president of the European Commission, Vera Jourova, took position about this and was followed by a number of worried, outraged speeches from the MEPs. “The International Criminal Court defined as war crimes the forced deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children as grounds for issuing the first arrest warrants since the start of the Russian invasion”, Jourova stated. The arrest warrants issued by the Court “include crimes for deporting hundreds of children taken from orphanages and hospitals. In many cases, some of these children would have been adopted by Russian families”, thus confirming the will to “take these children away from their country forever”. The EU Commission and Poland, the Commissioner added, are taking measures to let the deported Ukrainian children go back to their own families. Jourova spoke of investigations under way and of a likely international conference to pressure Russia into remedying this crime. “We are committed with all our forces to making sure the people responsible for the crimes of forced deportation or transfer of Ukrainian children are held accountable and the Ukrainian children will go back to their homes”.
Valentina Bombelli