Russian troops abducted almost 300 children from the Berdyansk district, the chairman said

Russian mass media reports that 48 Ukrainian children from the Berdyansk district were initially deported to Chuvashia, and the rest were forcibly removed in shifts.

“Russian security forces are sending children 1,600 kilometers away from home deep into Russia,” said chairman I. Fedorov. “Further they will manipulate the situation in the Berdyansk direction and keep children in Russia as hostages.”

“Ukrainian children are the last thing the Russian Federation thinks about. For them, it is a bargaining chip for blackmail,” Fedorov notes.

The Ukrainian national database shows that since February 2022, about 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted from the occupied territories and sent to other Russian-controlled territories or to Russia.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court announced that it was seeking the arrest of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin because he “allegedly bears responsibility for the war crime of illegal deportation of children and illegal transfer (of children) from the occupied regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.