Russian soldier to be tried for kidnapping children from Ukraine

Juvenile prosecutors have found a Russian soldier who took part in the deportation of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territory of Mykolaiv region to Russia. He was served a notice of suspicion.

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.

Cossack "Gabriel"

According to the investigation, the soldier with the call sign "Gabriel" was born in Dagestan and served in the 205th separate motorized rifle Cossack brigade of the Russian Army. This unit took part in the capture of the village of Novopetrivka in Mykolaiv region.

After occupying the settlement, the occupiers came to the local special school. There were 15 children there — eleven boys and four girls aged 8 to 17. One of them was a girl who had already been adopted by U.S. citizens but was not able to be taken away before the full-scale invasion began.

"Gabriel" and two other soldiers were on duty at the school to prevent the teachers from taking the children to government-controlled territory. As a result, the military officer was notified of suspicion of violating the laws and customs of war. This crime is punishable by eight to twelve years in prison.

What happened to the children

In mid-July 2022, the Russian military forcibly transferred the children, the director and her husband to the village of Stepanivka in the Kherson region. Later, the occupiers organized their transportation through the Kherson region and Crimea to the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation.

"Since October 2022, the deported children have been on the territory of the aggressor country. They were exposed to Russian propaganda every day — Russian nationalism was imposed on them. The children were forbidden to speak their native language, use Ukrainian symbols, and were forced to sing the Russian national anthem every morning", reported the Office of the Prosecutor General.

Subsequently, with the support of volunteer civil society organizations, all deported children were taken from Russia to Georgia.

As a reminder, during the Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of the Peace Formula in Montreal, the participating states committed themselves to returning all captured and deported Ukrainians. These are Qatar, the Vatican, Lithuania, South Africa, and the UAE. The International Criminal Court may also investigate the role of Belarus in the deportation of Ukrainian children, despite the fact that the country has not signed the Rome Statute.