Sixty per cent of children have left their homes because of war in Ukraine – volunteers

Since the beginning of the full-scale war unleashed by Russia, 60% of children in Ukraine have been forced to leave their homes.

"According to my calculations, 60 percent of children have been forced to move from their homes since the beginning of the full-scale aggression, that is more than half of the children have been forced to flee the war," Mykola Kuleba, Executive Director of Save Ukraine charitable fund, Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights (2014-2021), said during a press conference at the Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

He also noted that his foundation was making every effort to return Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia. According to Kuleba, Save Ukraine independently organizes and conducts such rescue missions.

"We do not cooperate with the Russian authorities. Earlier, we began to cooperate with the Ombudsman’s Office headed by Dmytro Lubinets who has relevant negotiations with that party. But we are ready to take on only the issues of logistics, preparation of relevant documents, transportation, delivery, further placement of children, etc.," Kuleba said.

Yevhenia Kapalkina, a lawyer of the NGO "Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group", said that international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions, categorically prohibits the occupying power from moving children within the occupied territory or to its own state.

"There are clearly regulated provisions that require the occupying power to comply with them. However, as we can see from the situation in Ukraine, Russia does not adhere to these principles and tries to deport children to the territory of the Russian Federation under the pretext of evacuation. And there it exerts influence both on their consciousness and on their identity and deprives them of the opportunity to communicate with relatives, etc.," the lawyer added.