EC, Poland to jointly help Ukraine look for children deported to Russia
Poland and the European Commission have announced a joint initiative regarding Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia, the minister for European Affairs has said.
"Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and EC President Ursula von der Leyen have announced a joint initiative to help Ukraine gather information on children abducted by Russia," Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said on Tuesday.
"Over recent months, we have been working to prepare a comprehensive offer of support for Ukraine in order to help it find deported children," the minister told journalists, and added that the offer had already been handed over to the Ukrainian side.
According to Ukraine, the number of Ukrainian children who have been deported to Russia has been estimated at 19,500, including only 369 who have returned home.
Speaking about the tragic results of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the minister said that genocide committed by the Russian side was extremely dramatic, and added that deportations of Ukrainian children was another crime committed by Russia.
In mid-March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on war crimes charges related to the illegal deportation of children from Russian-held parts of Ukraine. A similar warrant was issued for Russia's children's ombudsman, Marya Lvova-Byelova.
