The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine has received information from its sources about another case involving the removal of Ukrainian children from temporarily occupied territories.
This summer, children from an orphanage in the occupied part of the Donetsk region were taken to Russia, ostensibly for a “health retreat.” Not all of them returned. At least two children were placed under guardianship and transferred to the Moscow region.
The scheme follows an established pattern. Children are taken away under the pretext of holidays, rehabilitation or participation in cultural and educational programmes. Some of them are then not returned. Occupation administrations, Russian guardianship authorities and the organisers of such trips are involved in removing the children. After arriving in Russia, the children come under the control of local authorities, which can determine where they will subsequently live and their legal status. The fate of the two children in question is currently being established.
At the same time, the problem is considerably broader. According to the Foreign Intelligence Service, a system of child exploitation has developed in Russia that has both state and criminal dimensions. The state dimension includes, in particular, involving children in work at defence industry enterprises or their potential recruitment by Russian intelligence services. The criminal dimension includes sex trafficking, human trafficking, illegal organ transplantation and other forms of exploitation.
