Missing Ukrainian child found in Putin's ally

2023-11-23 19:08:00, Aktualitet CNA

Missing Ukrainian child found in Putin's ally

Margarita was only 10 months old when she was taken from home

A key political ally of Vladimir Putin has adopted a child taken from a children's home in Ukraine, according to documents uncovered by BBC Panorama.

Sergei Mironov, the 70-year-old leader of a Russian political party, is named in the adoption record of a 2-year-old girl, who was taken in in 2022 by a woman he is now married to.

The records show that the girl's identity has been changed in Russia. Mironov has not responded to the specific allegations of the investigation.

But on Thursday morning he posted on his Telegram account about attacks with false information on him and his family.

The child, originally named Margarita, was one of 48 children who disappeared from the Kherson Regional Children's Home when Russian forces took control of the city. They are among about 20,000 children who, according to the Ukrainian government, have been captured by Russian forces since the full-scale occupation began in 2022.

Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for allegedly illegally deporting Ukrainian children to territory controlled by Russia, with the intention of removing them from their country forever.

The Russian government says it does not deport Ukrainian children, but evacuates them to protect them from the war.

The BBC worked with Ukrainian human rights investigator Victoria Novikova to find out what happened to Margarita and the other children. Novikova has prepared a file with new evidence for the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, which will hand it over to the ICC. / CNA