Russian transfer of kids amounts to ‘war crime’: UN

Russia's forced transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to areas under its control amounts to a war crime, UN investigators said yesterday, also warning of possible crimes against humanity.

In its first report, the high-level investigation team created by the UN Human Rights Council a year ago determined that Russia had committed a vast array of violations since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"Many of these amount to war crimes," the report by the so-called Commission of Inquiry said, highlighting the forced transfers of children.

"The commission has concluded that the situations it has examined concerning the transfer and deportation of children, within Ukraine and to the Russian Federation respectively, violate international humanitarian law, and amount to a war crime," the report said.

According to Kyiv, 16,221 Ukrainian children were deported to Russia.

The investigators said they could not verify the figures but pointed to indications that Russian officials had taken measures to place transferred Ukrainian children in institutions and foster homes, and give them Russian citizenship.

The report pointed to a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin facilitating the granting of Russian citizenship to some categories of children.

The report stressed that "international humanitarian law prohibits the evacuation of children by a party to the armed conflict," with few exceptions. The investigators reviewed incidents concerning the transfer of 164 children, aged four to 18, from the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions.