Deportation in the form of adoption. Russians took 12 orphans from Melitopol district of Zaporizhzhia region

From the temporarily occupied Melitopol district of Zaporizhzhia region, the Russians took 12 Ukrainian orphans to the Samara region. According to Russian Daria Lanko, children were evacuated from the village of Mirne to the Russian Federation.

The Governor of the Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, reported that 12 children from the Zaporizhzhia region were taken to the Samara region. This happened with the support of the Russian Ombudsman for Children, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The Mirne military administration responded that all the children who were in the Mirne shelter before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine were evacuated to Poland in the first days of the war, where they are still staying. The children who were allegedly deported to the Samara region, like the rest brought to the shelter during the occupation, were brought by Russians from all over the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

“The administration has no information about where these children came from, from which families they were taken, or whether they have even distant relatives in connection with the occupation of the territory. According to unconfirmed information, the children were allegedly first taken to Crimea,” the administration reported.

In addition, in the first months of the occupation, Russian military personnel, in particular representatives of the engineering troops of the Russian army, lived in the children’s shelter. Two years later, in the spring of 2024, the children were brought to the Mirny shelter and given passports of Russian citizens.