As accusations of abductions resurface, it\u2019s clear the West doesn\u2019t care about facts on the ground if they contradict the narrative<\/p>\n
For the last three years, Ukraine and concerted legacy media campaigns have been screaming that Russia has abducted, or forcibly displaced, thousands of Ukrainian children \u2013 even up to 1.5 million!
\nThe accusations resurged in December, with a UN General Assembly vote on a draft resolution on the return of Ukrainian children.
\nDuring the meeting, Ukraine\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa once again pushed claims that\u00a0\u201cat least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia,\u201d\u00a0in spite of the fact that months prior, during the June Istanbul talks, the Ukrainian side finally provided a list of the children it accuses Russia of abducting: 339 children, surprisingly far fewer than the number alleged for years.
\nThe absence of over 19,500 on the list indeed leads to many questions, mainly: is Ukraine lying again? Recall that in 2022, the accusations by the (now former) Ukrainian ombudswoman, Lyudmila Denisova, about \u201csexual atrocities\u201d allegedly committed by Russian soldiers, were revealed to be lies and propaganda. So much so that Denisova was sacked. But before her dismissal, legacy media and the UN all backed the lies.
\nSome recent accusations are that children were being sent to labor camps in Russia \u2013 \u201c165 re-education camps where Ukrainian children are militarized and Russified\u201d \u2013 or even of being sent to North Korea, as Katerina Rashevskaya of the Ukrainian Regional Center for Human Rights told the US Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on December 3.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Western media peddle Russia\u2019s \u2018abduction\u2019 of Ukrainian children to prolong the proxy war<\/p>\n
The footnotes of the claims made by Rashevskaya, instead of a source for the information, say\u00a0\u201cThe Regional Human Rights Center can provide information upon request.\u201d\u00a0In other words, her sources are \u201ctrust me, bro.\u201d
\nRegarding the\u00a0North Korean camp in question, if two Russian teens were sent there, they\u2019d potentially be made to enjoy water slides, basketball and volleyball courts, an arcade room, a rock climbing wall, art and performance halls, an archery range, a private beach, and hikes in the mountains.
\nRegarding the list of 339 children Ukraine says were abducted by Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova remarked, \u201c30 percent of the names on the list could not be verified, as most of those children were never in Russia, are now adults, or have already returned to their families. As for the Ukrainian children who are actually in our country, they are under state care in appropriate institutions. They are safe now; in many cases, their evacuation from combat zones saved their lives. Local children\u2019s rights commissioners are now working to reunite them with their relatives.\u201d
\nJust as legacy media has whitewashed the eight years of Ukraine\u2019s war against Donbass civilians prior to Russia commencing its military operation in 2022, including the Ukrainian shelling which\u00a0killed 250 children starting in 2014, media likewise ignore the children Russia says are missing.
\nDuring the talks in Istanbul, Zakharova noted, \u201cthe Russian side presented Ukraine with a list of 20 Russian children who are either currently in Ukraine or relocated from Ukraine to Western Europe, including to countries that endorsed this very statement. Now, the burden falls on these states to provide Russia with a substantive response regarding our ‘list of 20.’\u201d
\nOver 500 Ukrainian orphans abused in T\u00fcrkiye
\nRecently, Donbass-based journalist Christelle N\u00e9ant wrote about a report published on a pro-Ukrainian website which broke the story of 510 Ukrainian children who had been evacuated by a Ukrainian oligarch in 2022 from Dnepropetrovsk to T\u00fcrkiye, where the benevolent foundation which brought them there allegedly allowed its staff to beat the children, sexually assault them, and deny them food if they refused to perform on camera to raise funds for their lodging. These are just some of the reported violations of the orphans\u2019 rights.
\nThe details of the report show that the children suffered physically and psychologically. Additionally, two underage teens were impregnated by staff at the hotel they stayed in, with educators allegedly aware of the interactions.
\nAccording to N\u00e9ant, the orphanage director\u2019s response to the fact of one of the teens in her care becoming pregnant was to blame the girl: \u201cThis young girl comes from an asocial family. Well, this way of life is already inscribed in every cell, in the blood of these children.\u201d
\n\u201cIn almost 10 years of work in Donbass,\u201d N\u00e9ant wrote, \u201cI have conducted or filmed many humanitarian missions to orphanages in the region. And never ever have I heard a director make such vile remarks about one of the children in her care. Even the most difficult and recalcitrant were cared for with pedagogy, love, and patience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
RT recaps Kiev\u2019s deadliest attacks on Russian civilians<\/p>\n
Ukraine hunting down children
\nIn April 2023, Christelle N\u00e9ant and I interviewed Artyomovsk civilians who had recently been rescued by Russian soldiers. In addition to being deliberately shelled by Ukrainian forces who knew they were sheltering in the basement of a residential building, the civilians we spoke to told us about Ukrainian military police hunting for children. The evacuees told us some of these police went by the name \u2018White Angels\u2019,\u00a0and were taking children away without their consent or that of their parents.
\nAround that time, more reports came out about these abductions or attempted abductions, including an 11-year-old girl who spoke of how White Angels, who introduced themselves as military police, came to the basement she was sheltering in with a photo of her, looking for her, and saying they needed to take her away, because \u201cRussia killed her mother.\u201d According to the girl, her mother was alive and with her.
\nReports of these abductions also emerged in Avdeyevka, Kupyansk, Slavyansk, Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka, as well\u00a0as in Ukrainsk and Zhelannoye.
\nN\u00e9ant wrote of a July 2023 conference on Ukraine\u2019s crimes against the Donbass children, in which Liliya and her daughter Kira from Schastye, in the Lugansk People\u2019s Republic, spoke.\u00a0
\nThey gave evidence of how, \u201cat the start of the special military operation (when Ukraine controlled Schastye), around ten children were taken from a school in Schastye to western Ukraine by the headmistress of the school, on orders from Kiev, without informing their parents.\u201d
\nThe children were even forbidden to call their parents, N\u00e9ant wrote, \u201cBut Kira knew her mother\u2019s telephone number by heart and managed to call her to let her know that they were in Lviv and then Khoust. Thanks to Liliya\u2019s determination to find her daughter, we discovered how Kiev \u2018exports\u2019 the children it abducts.\u201d Ukraine had forged a new \u201coriginal\u201d birth certificate for Kira. The girl said she and the other children were to be sent to Poland.
\nFormer SBU officer Vasily Prozorov spoke at the same conference, where he explained, according to N\u00e9ant, \u201cthat one of his investigations had revealed that some of the children abducted by Ukraine are sent to pedophile networks in Great Britain, via a whole network of Ukrainian and British officials or former officials who work together. On the British side, members of MI6 and the Foreign Office are involved.\u201d
\nProzorov, she wrote, spoke of \u201canother of his investigations on organizations registered in EU countries involved in \u2018exporting\u2019 children from Ukraine under the pretext of providing them with shelter. These organizations take unaccompanied Ukrainian children out of Ukraine. What happens to them afterwards is unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Moscow slams Western silence over New Year\u2019s Eve massacre of civilians<\/p>\n
Evacuees from Kherson reject \u2018abduction\u2019 claims
\nIn November 2022, in the southern Russian seaside city Anapa, I met numerous people displaced from Kherson who were being lodged in hotels and apartments in the city.
\nThe first site I visited was a few minutes by taxi outside of the city, one of many hotels along the coast. The hotel director showing me around said they don\u2019t call them refugees, \u201cwe call them guests of the building,\u201d and spoke affectionately of them, how grateful they were to be there, far from any shelling. Just under 500 refugees had been living there since October, she told me.
\nNo guards monitored the entrance\/exit; the refugees walked around tidy grounds. But in any case, I asked about their freedom of movement, or lack thereof.
\n\u201cThey move freely, of course. We don\u2019t prohibit them from going out. Many aren\u2019t here now because they\u2019re in town, looking for jobs, getting documents. Children are at school.\u201d
\nWith my hired translator, I spoke with two Kherson women, a young mother and her own mother, to hear their stories.
\n\u201cWe were living with explosions at night, it was very scary, not only for myself, but for my children and for my grandchildren,\u201d the older woman said. \u201cWhen you go to bed, you don\u2019t know if you will get out of bed in the morning. We were forced to leave.\u201d
\nI asked who was shelling them. \u201cWord of mouth transmits very clearly, and people around us spoke about it. We were bombed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian soldiers protected us.\u201d
\nThe younger woman said she used to speak with the Russian soldiers there. \u201cThey are friendly. We wanted to hug them, because we felt protected. They helped us, gave us humanitarian aid, brought it to the house.\u201d
\nSome minutes\u2019 taxi ride away, I visited an apartment complex that could have served tourists in summer.\u00a0 There, fifty buildings housed around 1,500 refugees who had also arrived in October, mostly from Kherson Region.
\nMy translator and I walked around, passing playgrounds, a pharmacy, a library, a swimming pool, a gym, a small petting zoo with peacocks, and a kindergarten. Near a playground, I spoke with a mother sitting on a bench with two of her four children.
\n\u201cIn the early days, there was bombing. We spent two and a half weeks in the basement. It was unbearable, the children were very afraid.\u201d One of her daughters became ill. \u201cShe had acute inflammation of the lower jaw, we think due to hypothermia. We took her to Simferopol and she had surgery.\u201d\u00a0
\nIn Anapa, she said, her children had full medical examinations. \u201cWe were helped by the mayor of the city of Anapa. We are grateful for everything.\u201d
\nI mentioned that according to Western media, she and her family were kidnapped by Russia. She replied that her husband\u2019s parents had demanded to see the children, having been told that children were being separated from their parents in Russia.
\n\u201cHis mother called three days in a row, saying, \u2018Where are the children?\u2019 We answered, \u2018They went to the cinema. They\u2019re playing, etc.\u2019 She said, \u2018Show me the children, they say that they took your children from you.\u2019\u201d
\nDetails matter
\nWhereas legacy media continue to push the \u201cEvil Russia child kidnapper\u201d narrative, there is ample evidence that Ukraine is guilty of doing precisely what it accuses Russia of. The is also a significant absence of evidence regarding the \u201820,000 kidnapped children\u2019\u00a0claims still being pushed.
\nWill media investigate the reports of abuse of Ukrainian children in T\u00fcrkiye? Surely not. It wouldn\u2019t suit their scripted anti-Russia bias.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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