Deportation of over 19,500 Ukrainian children officially confirmed - Lubinets

If Ukraine returns one child deported by the Russians every day, it will take 55 years to return all of them.

Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said this during an international human rights conference "Freedom or Fear," according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Currently, there is a figure of more than 19,540 officially confirmed deported Ukrainian children. If we return one child every day, it will take us 55 years [to return them all]. And this is against the background of the Russian Federation continuing to deport more and more groups of Ukrainian children from our state every day," Lubinets said.

According to him, the Ukrainian authorities now have many initiatives in this regard.

"Unfortunately, we do not have many tools to return all Ukrainian deported children. But we are looking for more and more specific tools to return our Ukrainian children," the ombudsman said.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, stated at the UN Security Council meeting on December 6 that the return of Ukrainian children who were illegally deported or forcibly relocated by the Russian Federation was one of the most urgent tasks.