UN calls on Russia to explain itself over transfer of Ukrainian children

Moscow is due to give explanations at the UN on Monday over the thousands of children who Kiev claims were forcibly transferred to Russia after the start of the invasion in February 2022. 

The Committee on the Rights of the Child, made up of 18 independent experts, will discuss Russia's case over two days as part of a regular review. 

The transfer of Ukrainian children last March earned President Vladimir Putin and Russian children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged "illegal deportation" of minors. Moscow said it considers such an initiative "null and void".

In the case before the UN, Russia received the list of experts' concerns months ago. 

They want to know how many children were "evacuated" to Russia or to the Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation, and "the measures taken to protect the right of these children to preserve their identity, including their nationality". 

Kiev estimates that some 20,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly sent to Russia. Only 400 have been repatriated so far. 

Moscow says its aim is to protect these children from the fighting. 

The relocation of the evacuated children is done "at their request and with their consent", Russia said in written answers submitted last year to the committee, which the UN released to the press last week. 

The document does not put a figure on the total number of children transferred. But it says that "among the evacuees were also children from public residential institutions for orphans and destitute children (about 2,000 persons in total), whose legal representatives were the directors or employees of these institutions".

Moscow's response also indicates that according to Interior Ministry statistics, 46,886 Ukrainian children acquired Russian citizenship between 1 April 2022 and the middle of last year.