(Kyiv) The United States again accused Moscow on Wednesday of having transferred Ukrainian children to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, some of whom were put up for adoption.
“This is despicable, it is appalling,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement, adding that “Russia is waging a war not only against the Ukrainian military, but also against the Ukrainian people.”
“As the president has indicated, Russia is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine,” he added.
The White House press release refers in particular to an investigation by the daily Financial Times, published Wednesday, which says it has identified and located four Ukrainian children transferred to Russia, then offered for adoption on the site usynovite.ru. The children range in age from 8 to 15 years old.
According to the newspaper, the name of one of them was changed to Russian and no mention is made on the site of their Ukrainian origins.
Ukraine is demanding the return of nearly 20,000 minors “deported or forcibly displaced” to Russia since its assault began on February 24, 2022.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the alleged illegal deportations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP in an interview in May that he intended to make the return to Ukraine of thousands of children transferred to Russia one of the priority issues at the international conference on peace in Ukraine, planned mid-June in Switzerland.
Ukraine shot down 29 Russian drones and missiles over Kyiv on Tuesday night, the capital’s military administration said, with President Volodymyr Zelensky praising the “effectiveness” of the air defenses.
“Missiles attacked Kyiv from the south in several waves. Almost simultaneously, enemy attack drones headed towards the capital from the same southern direction,” the Kyiv military administration said on Telegram.
AFP journalists present on site heard at least one explosion in the middle of the night, after the city’s air alert had been given.
Russia launched 24 drones and six missiles across the country, the debris of which sparked a fire in the region surrounding the capital, injuring one man, according to national police.
Ukrainian authorities said in total they had intercepted all of the drones and five of the six Russian missiles fired.
“Such a result […] can be our daily success if we have enough tools to repel terrorist attacks,” pleaded Volodymyr Zelensky in a message on social networks, a new call to the West to delivers other anti-aircraft defense systems to it.
Since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine has steadily strengthened its air defense over the capital, where attacks have declined significantly compared to the first months of the Russian assault.
But elsewhere in the country, Ukraine does not have the same means.
Volodymyr Zelensky called once again on Tuesday, during a trip to Berlin, to “strengthen Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defense” in particular to defend the eastern region of Kharkiv, which borders Russia and has been the target of a new Russian offensive since May 10.
American media reported that the United States, Kyiv’s main military and financial ally, would send a new Patriot air defense system in the coming days.
The last attack on Kyiv was on May 31, when a Russian Iskander-K cruise missile was shot down over the Ukrainian capital, causing a fire, according to the Kyiv military administration on Telegram.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian drone attack injured three civilians, including a 13-year-old boy, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Another such strike on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday “damaged” an energy facility in the Sumy region, bordering Russia, the state electricity company Ukrenergo announced.
