Part 1: If you want to conquer a people, raise their children
The Scheme
(Research March/April 2023)-(Written June/July 2023)
Investigators: Nicoleta Banila , Vyacheslav Kolomets, Vasile Popa, Nicoleta Banila, Deniz M. Dirisu
Edited by: Gijs Freriks
Overview
The Russian Federation (referred from hereinafter as RU), in August 2022, introduced a draft bill “banning adoption and guardianship for citizens of unfriendly countries'', claiming in the explanatory note that “If you want to conquer the people, raise their children!”. This is exactly the reason why since February 24, 2022, the RU has forcibly transferred 16,207 children from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Mariupol regions of Ukraine in an attempt to erase the Ukrainian identities of the kidnapped children.
The kidnapped children are processed by the RU state, where children’s identities are erased by issuing new birth certificates, names, and citizenship. After that, the children are “adopted” by Russian families. Meanwhile, older children are sent to rehabilitation camps for “reintegration shifts” to be indoctrinated about Russian culture and ideals.
International media and human rights organisations identified RU Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova as the main architect of the grand scheme of forcible transfer and subsequent adoption of Ukrainian Children by Russian families, an act that should be considered genocide under Public International Law. However, Belova is not conducting this scheme alone; many aides and sponsors were essential in putting this entire mechanism into motion.
By analysing available open-source information and potential evidence, we have identified key actors involved in this scheme, exposed incriminating information on said actors, and mapped out a series of locations across the Russian Federation where Ukrainian children are being taken. We also take a deeper look into the scheme’s functioning, uncovering certain patterns regarding the selection of foster families. You can read our findings below.
The Scheme Explained
The transcript of a discussion between Belova and President Putin on February 18, 2023, indicates that the forced deportation and adoption scheme is in full force. While presenting her office’s progress, Belova said that the number of applications from Russians who want to adopt children from Ukraine increased by an annual 27%, while inquiries regarding the adoption of children from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions increased by an annual 12%.
She also depicts how her office accommodated “hard-to-place” children in large family groups with five or six children, giving the example of a family in Moscow that took in nine children. “We followed a regional distribution scheme. I called the governors personally. In 19 regions, the governors picked out good families for the children,” Belova said. Answering a question from Putin regarding governors’ help, Belova says that governors “are in charge of all this and provide all the help required”.
“Rehabilitation and integration” shifts for teenagers
Maria Lvova-Belova's office has a special focus on teenagers arriving from occupied areas, for which the state has prepared the “The Day after Tomorrow” program, with so-called “youth shifts” consisting of camps at centers for “psychological rehabilitation”, for “an immersive experience in Russia’s cultural and educational environment”. The first joint session brought together 170 teenagers from the Donetsk People's Republic and 30 Russian peers from children's public councils under regional commissioners for children's rights across Russia.
In addition to the rehabilitation shifts, “Integration shifts” were organised in Krasnodar territory, Chelyabinsk children's recreation complex "Uralskaya Beryozka” and the Moscow region of Russia throughout 2022. Ukrainian teeenagers got “acquainted” with the history of Russia and the region. They received a certificate of completion of courses, “which in the future may be useful when entering a Russian university”.
About 557,000 teenagers from Donbass and Ukraine who have become forced migrants are now in Russia, Lvova-Belova said in August 2022. "I know firsthand what is going on in their heads. It is not their fault ... They are not at all close to the culture and history of Russia, and they openly admit it," said Lvova-Belova. “According to her, her adopted son from Mariupol runs after her other son and tells him, ‘I'm going to eat a москаленка’ (Muscovite) or tells how he went out with a flag to demonstrate in support of Ukraine and that he is proud of it”, the outlet writes.
The fifth shift of "The Day After Tomorrow" for “adolescents affected by hostilities” took place in the Moscow region and ended in December 2022. Since the start of the project in August, more than 1,000 children from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions have participated. The venues that received the children this year were health centers in the Krasnodar, Rostov, and Moscow Regions. At the end of each shift, participants received “personal recommendations for development and self-regulation”.
On February 18, 2023, while presenting her “achievements” since the beginning of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Belova said that some 2,000 teenagers will participate in ten “rehabilitation shifts” throughout 2023.
“Star” families
Even though Russian officials claim that there is a vast interest from Russian families to adopt children from Ukraine, social media and the news cycle is flooded (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4) with success stories in order to convince Russian families to sign up for “adoption”. Children seem to be given only to numerous families already raising several foster kids. Often, awards are given to mothers who raise a significant number of foster kids.
Irina Rudnitskaya from Ruza, who runs a non-profit association for foster children, is one of these mothers. She received special thanks from Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov as she took in a little girl from Donetsk and 17-year-old Bogdan from Mariupol. She is raising 11 foster kids. In December, Vorobyov awarded families who took in orphans from Ukraine.
Human rights activist and lawyer Kateryna Rashevska spoke to Hromadske.ua about a woman named Liliana, who has worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs all her life, and has many awards because 50 children have passed through her hand. “It is like a business”, she added.
Grim fate for children brought to Russia
At the beginning of February 2023, Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets shared on his Telegram account disturbing information indicating that Ukrainian children are being trafficked for pornography and sex in Russia.
According to a print screen of a conversation between a trafficker (Sergey), and a customer shared by Lubinets, the price for a boy who “will soon go to school” is 250,000 rubles. The correspondence states that the children are from Ukraine and have no relatives.
“It is impossible to describe the whole range of emotions in words. The Russian Federation insidiously kidnaps, kills, deports, and rapes our children. How is this even possible in today's world?! I call on the Cyber Police, the National Police, and the Prosecutor General's Office to take appropriate measures to respond to a possible crime, to find and punish the guilty, and to return the affected children home”, Lubinets writes.
Lubinets quit the European Ombudsman Institute (EIO) in February 2023 after EIO secretary general Josef Siegele reportedly took two Ukrainian children who were refugees in Austria to Russia. Austrian authorities launched an investigation into Siegele’s actions, prompting Latvia and Lithuania Ombudsmen to also quit EIO.
In another case, at least 14 orphans from Kherson were taken to the Crimean orphanage Yolochka, which in 2020, was nicknamed a “concentration camp” for abusing children.
