Aggressors pursue two tasks regarding Ukrainian children - President’s envoy

This was stated by the President's Commissioner for Children's Rights and Rehabilitation, Daria Herasymchuk, who spoke on the air of Ukrinform: Evening Stream.

"This is a genocidal policy. They (Russians — ed.) pursue two tasks: either to eliminate and break the children here, on the territory of Ukraine, which they do - they kill, inflict serious injuries, commit sexual and psychological violence against children, that is, they break them, destroying the future of the Ukrainian nation here. Also, their second task is to abduct Ukrainian children in order to replenish their own nation," said the children's ombudsperson.

According to her, often abducted Ukrainian children are sent to cadet corps or subjected to other militarization classes so that they later join the ranks of the Russian army.

Herasymchuk also noted that the Russians exaggerate the data on children deported from Ukraine in order to present the crime as a "noble act."

"The largest number we recorded in the Russian media is 744,000 allegedly ‘evacuated’ children. Everyone understands that this is in no way an evacuation, but rather an abduction, deportation, and forced displacement, but the Russians present it as a really noble act. And accordingly, the bigger the number they voice, the better the act ‘sounds’ to them, being more global," she explained.

At the same time, according to Herasymchuk, the Russians have provided no confirmation of these data, as neither have they granted access to the children to the Ukrainian side, international organizations, or third countries.

The President's envoy emphasized that Ukraine has data on 19,500 children abducted by Russia, but this figure could potentially reach 300,000, as this is how many young Ukrainians used to live in the territories now temporarily occupied by the Russians.

Herasymchuk recalled that Ukraine secured the return of just 386 children earlier deported by Russia.

The lawyer with the Regional Center for Human Rights NGO, Kateryna Rashevska, emphasized that the deportation of Ukrainian children by the Russians is “nothing but genocide.”

"This is definitely a purposeful policy, and to answer the question of why they do it, you need to look at the internal situation in Russia. The fact is that they are facing significant demographic problems," she noted.

According to the legal expert, abduction and deportation of children is a tool for the physical extermination of the Ukrainian people as the Russians are getting stronger, while the Ukrainians are being weakened in this way.

According to Rashevska, it is now impossible to establish the exact number of deported children because there is no access to the territories temporarily captured by the Russians. International organizations, such as UN special representative Virginia Gamba, could help with establishing data, but she "removed herself from the process, claiming that deported and forcibly displaced children are outside her mandate," Rashevska believes. However, the lawyer emphasizes that the issue of child abduction is indeed part of the UN special representative's mandate.

The specialist added that for legal qualification it does not matter whether the child was accompanied or unaccompanied at the time of their removal from the Ukrainian territory.

Such removals were mostly done through coercion and intimidation by Russian forces, “which by their very presence created an atmosphere of fear and lack of freedom, where it was impossible to make a free and informed decision,” she noted.

As reported, as of August 14, the Russian army killed at least 502 children and injured another 1,097 across Ukraine.