By KYIV. Dec 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking to the participants of the International Coalition of States on the Return of Deported Ukrainian Children on Friday, called on it to expand and implement effective actions.
As the head of state stressed, “Russia’s forcible deportation of children is one of the most cynical crimes of the war and the organized work of the Russian state system.” “This is a clear genocidal policy of Russia,” he said.
“Children are not just being taken out of the occupied territory of Ukraine. Russia is deliberately trying to destroy any ties with Ukraine, with their relatives and friends. They are taught lies about Ukraine, about the war. They are given up for illegal adoption even when they themselves say that they have relatives and close people here in Ukraine …,” Zelenskyy added.
According to him, “now it is necessary to pay special attention to the perception of time – when you see how children are growing up, how childhood is growing into adolescence, how a child is becoming an adult … Sometimes even one day, if it is lost, means too much for both the family and the child. Russia claims hundreds of thousands of deported Ukrainian children, whom it has stolen from Ukraine and is trying to dissolve into its being.”
“And we need the fastest and most energetic actions to bring back all these children,” he said.
The Head of State recalled that one of the points of the Ukrainian Peace Formula is the return of people from Russian deportation and captivity.
“I urge you to increase our coalition – to increase the chances of every Ukrainian child to live at home, to live in general, to return not in years, but as soon as possible,” Zelenskyy said.
As reported, at the end of October, representatives of Canada at a meeting of national security advisers on the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula in Malta proposed to create an international coalition on the return of Ukrainian children deported and abducted by Russia.
